My dev area of focus? Machine Learning! Because it's fascinating to teach a computer to learn from experience :)

Machine "learning"... Sorry, I'm still not very convinced :P

@DrHaXX why not? :P

So far I consider machine learning an advanced form of mathematical optimization of a cost function given some input. Now whether you consider that learning is totally up to you. I don't consider it learning just yet, as you cannot (yet) teach a computer simple, abstract concepts like "animal". You can teach it to learn the concept of cat, dog, cow, whatever, all separately, but if you show it another animal it will not recognize it as a different, unidentified animal. Best case, it will say that its not a cat, and not a dog, etc, which is true but thats not very helpful. Worst case, it says that it is a cow, or something else, which it may not be. I think that our ability to learn does encompass this ability, but the field of machine learning seems to be lacking this, which is why I argue that machines cannot truly learn yet.

@DrHaXX I agree :) One of the main challenges in Machine Learning is to teach machines the context of what they're being taught. Only then will they be able to recognize a never seen before animal as an animal.

Another challenge is life-long learning, i.e. learning several concepts continuously, and attempting to relate them and learn something new from the interconnections of those concepts, slowly moving towards artificial general intelligence :)