# 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]]