I adjusted @nbro's answer to remove the parts I thought were too restrictive. AI is a broad field, and the whitelist of "on-topic" areas omits a huge number of topics which are certainly within AI (consider, for contrast, the topics that are present at AAAI this year alone, all of which are active areas of research). I think that the entry under the "What topics can I ask about here?" is specific enough. If we want to use a list of valid topics, we should formulate it by starting with actual active areas of research for the field, perhaps by amalgamating the keywords and topics that are present at AAAI, NIPS, UAI, IJCAI, AAMAS, CEC, and other major conferences. I suspect that's a lot more work than it's worth however.
I also adjusted the wording of the programming portion to better reflect the idea that programming questions are fundamentally on-topic here, as long as they are about AI algorithms or implementations, and not applications. I think that without this, the stack is going to lack a connection to academic AI, and will descend into a sort of futurism/singularity board. We want to encourage more programming related content, not less, but only of the kind that actually relates to AI.
What topics can I ask about here?
If you have a question about theoretical, philosophical, historical, social and algorithmic or academic aspects of AI, then you are probably in the right place to ask your question!
Notes
Before posting, please, look around to see if your question has been asked before. Your question could be closed as a duplicate of another, if you don't do it.
You should put some effort into writing your question. If your question is unclear, it could be flagged as unclear, your question could be closed, and you will not receive help. Furthermore, we expect users to do a little bit of research before asking a question.
Ask specific questions! If your question has potentially many answers, your question may be closed as too broad.
You should try asking one question per post, unless the questions are really very related to each other. If you ask multiple questions per post, your post may be closed as too broad.
Ideally, we are looking for questions that can be answered objectively. More precisely, do not ask for advice (such as career path recommendation or a preferred tool, which are, in general, off-topic here anyway) but for facts (including references) and arguments. If you have a philosophical question, you should demand a logical, rational and reasonable answer that argues the philosophical perspective (and not just an opinion).
It's also OK to ask and answer your own question.
Programming questions about the implementation of AI algorithms, or the source code of implementations of those algorithms, are on-topic. Programming questions about applying AI tools to specific problems are off-topic, and probably belong on DataScience.SE, or the main StackOverflow site. If you're looking for a clarification of the implementation of a certain AI concept, then your question is on-topic. For example, if a theoretical topic is described by a certain mathematical formula and you want to understand the implementation of this formula, then your question is on-topic. However, if you have a question like "Why am I getting this exception?", "How do I merge two Pandas' data frames?", or "How can I use Tensorflow to train a neural network to recognize cats?" then your question is off-topic (and you should probably ask it on Stack Overflow).
Similar websites
If your question is not on-topic for Artificial Intelligence Stack Exchange, it may be on-topic for another Stack Exchange site, such as
Certain questions are probably on-topic on multiple of these websites. For example, machine learning questions are also on-topic at Cross Validated, which is more statistics-oriented.
If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area 51, the place where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.