# AI Effect **Domain:** Artificial Intelligence / Historiography / Public Understanding **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition The **AI effect** is the recurring reclassification of a capability as ordinary computation once machines perform it reliably, leaving the term _artificial intelligence_ attached primarily to what remains unsolved. ## Historical Context The idea is associated with Larry Tesler's formulation that intelligence is whatever machines have not yet done and Pamela McCorduck's observation that successful AI capabilities are routinely renamed as narrower technical disciplines. ## Corpus Context In [[articles/Modern Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s|Modern Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s]], associative memory becomes linear algebra, perception becomes image processing and speech becomes signal processing. The field appears permanently young because its successes are removed from its visible history. ## Key Insight **A field defined by its unsolved residue is perpetually new by construction.** ## See Also [[wiki/Artificial Intelligence|Artificial Intelligence]], [[wiki/Periodization|Periodization]], [[wiki/AI Winter|AI Winter]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "AI people try to build models of the parts we do understand." > **— Roger Schank**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/AI Models Only the Parts of Thought We Understand by Roger Schank|AI Models Only the Parts of Thought We Understand by Roger Schank]] > "A human player can make generalizations and describe why certain types of moves are good, and use that to teach a human player." > **— Rodney A. Brooks**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Risk Debate/Mistaking Performance For Competence Misleads Estimates Of AIs 21st Century Promise And Danger by Rodney A. Brooks|Mistaking Performance For Competence Misleads Estimates Of AIs 21st Century Promise And Danger by Rodney A. Brooks]] > "The Singularity—the fateful moment when AI surpasses its creators in intelligence and takes over the world—is a meme worth pondering." > **— Daniel C. Dennett**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/The Singularity Is a Meme Worth Examining by Daniel C. Dennett|The Singularity Is a Meme Worth Examining by Daniel C. Dennett]] > ""Thinking" is a word we apply with no discipline whatsoever to a huge variety of reported behaviors." > **— James J. O'Donnell**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/We Use Thinking Without Discipline by James J. O'Donnell|We Use Thinking Without Discipline by James J. O'Donnell]] > "Most such prophecies are grounded in a false analogy between human nature and computer nature, or natural intelligence and artificial intelligence." > **— Michael Shermer**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/When It Comes To AI, Think Protopia, Not Utopia Or Dystopia by Michael Shermer|When It Comes To AI, Think Protopia, Not Utopia Or Dystopia by Michael Shermer]]