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Comment by beryilma | Hacker News Reader

> As soon as it works, no one calls it AI anymore.

So, what are good examples of some things that we used to call AI, which we don't call AI anymore because they work? All the examples that come to my mind (recommendation engines, etc.) do not have any real societal benefits.

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Some examples are navigation algorithms, machine learning, neural networks, fuzzy logic, or computer vision. I personally learned several of those in a "Artificial Intelligence" CS course ~15 years ago, but most people would never think to call Google Maps, a smart thermostat learning their habits, or their doorbell camera recognizing faces "AI".

It's only recently with generative AI that you see any examples of the opposite, people outside the field calling LLMs or image generation "AI".

Other examples are even more classical. Like state search algorithms. Alfa-beta pruning is no longer intelligence, just an algorithm.

Chess engines. People once believed that in order for a computer to play chess we would first have to create an intelligence comparable to humans. Turns out you can win by evaluating millions of positions per turn instead. It would be somewhat disappointing for someone who was looking for a human-like opponent, that it can simply be brute forced. But it may be that a lot of “intelligence” is like that.

It’s the cognitive equivalent of the Indiana Jones sword vs gun scene.

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