Yeah, in the end it's all if-this-happens-do-that under the hood. And that's important because game AI must be deterministic. Otherwise reproducing bugs would be impossible.

Aren't most elements in video games, including the player characters, state machines?

> all enemy AI in gaming history are state machines of some sort.

Couldn't that be said about all natural intelligences too? "state machines of some sort" is a very broad characterisation fitting almost anything.