The conventional ABS system is not AI in any sense. It is a few sensors and maybe some look up tables of what to do under various speed / brake pressure / wheel rotation situations
Does that not fit the definition of artificial intelligence? The system makes decisions – ones that would be otherwise done by a human – based on its perception of the world. That is what I have always understood AI to mean. To be sure, a conventional ABS system does not use machine learning, but machine learning is only a subset of AI.
The core of this debate is the matter of what intelligence actually is. We don't really know, but the most common definition I have heard/read is that intelligence is the ability to generate new solutions when presented with previously unseen input. An ABS would not qualify under this definition, because its output is predefined rigorously for all possible combinations of input values.
On the other hand, artificial intelligence is not actual intelligence. The definition of artificial intelligence is the ability to perform a task that would normally require human intelligence. An ABS system would fit into this definition as it is a task that normally would require human sensing the conditions to know how to apply the breaks.
Although I can see why some point out that AI is a moving target, representing only what still seems 'magical'. If you showed an ABS system to someone in the early 1900s, I truly believe they would see it as some kind of intelligence. Now that we have acclimated to the technology, we don't see it the same way.
>The definition of artificial intelligence is the ability to perform a task that would normally require human intelligence.
Do you have any specific sources that define it as that?
>An ABS system would fit into this definition as it is a task that normally would require human sensing the conditions to know how to apply the breaks.
Responding to stimuli does not require any intelligence, let alone human intelligence.
> Do you have any specific sources that define it as that?
Several definitions as provided by a Google Search.
> Responding to stimuli does not require any intelligence, let alone human intelligence.
Which is why we call it artificial intelligence instead of intelligence. If these systems were actually intelligent, there would be no reason to add the artificial moniker. We specifically call the types of systems artificial intelligence on recognition that it is not actually what we consider real intelligence.
I agree, there is nothing intelligent about an ABS system, and nobody is labeling it as intelligent.
"Artificial" is opposed to "natural", not "genuine". It's a synonym of "machine intelligence". It's a comment on the fact that the intelligence has been artificially created in a machine. It is not in any way about the current capabilities of artificial intelligence.
> Artificial intelligence (AI, also machine intelligence, MI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence (NI) displayed by humans and other animals.
>I agree, there is nothing intelligent about an ABS system, and nobody is labeling it as intelligent.
Artificial intelligence is intelligence, just made artificially instead of organically. You clearly have no understanding of the term so you should probably shut up.
That doesn't make it not an AI -- it makes it a very simple, explicable AI. Unless you follow the definition that AI is whatever we don't know how to program yet.
There is no sharp line, just as there is no sharp line for "intelligence". Lot of software can indeed be classified as (very weak) AI, because it makes decisions in service of a goal.
Because there is no sharp line, where to draw the line depends on context, and the point being made. I have found that "AI" is a good term to apply when it is more useful to take the intentional stance[+] to explain an artificial system's behavior than to trace the actual low-level implementation.
At the very lowest end I could include some closed-loop control as AI (a simple proportional controller wouldn't count, a PID might). The more complex the model it has of the environment, and it's own effect on the environment, the more useful it is to call it an AI.
A slightly more complex example are computer games, whose simple AIs are generally readily explainable from their code. In an RTS game with good AI, it's not useful to look at how computer opponents (or my own units) do pathing, only where they're trying to go, and the obstacles they'll encounter.
ABS is lower than I would normally consider AI to be a useful descriptor because of how little information processing occurs (basically just wheel speed and brake pedal trajectory). In this context it's worth not excluding precisely to emphasize that AI is not just machine learning, but just about anything that autonomously makes intelligent decisions in response to changing environments.
So in your mind the difference between AI (which you define very loosely) and any other program is just the scope and complexity.
>Lot of software can indeed be classified as (very weak) AI, because it makes decisions in service of a goal.
So take GNU make for example. It makes decisions of what to build in service of the goal of building some target you specified. Is GNU make an AI? By this definition it would be.
>At the very lowest end I could include some closed-loop control as AI (a simple proportional controller wouldn't count, a PID might).
Why would artifical intelligence have any requirement of runnig continuously? Is this a requirement for intelligence or is it just an arbitrary requirement you came up with to narrow down your very loose definition of AI? Now is Nginx an AI? It runs continuously and makes decisions of what to serve over HTTP. How about Bays spam filters? Those run contiuously (at least some of them) and make decisions of what to classify as spam.
>The more complex the model it has of the environment, and it's own effect on the environment, the more useful it is to call it an AI.
Making the complexity a requirement for AI is a bit silly as well. What if someone comes up with a very simple way of building an artificial intelligence? Just smells like you want to be able to use "it's not complex enough" as an argument for things that would otherwise fit your definition of AI. The problem with your definition seems to be that it doesn't include intelligence.
>ABS is lower than I would normally consider AI to be a useful descriptor because of how little information processing occurs (basically just wheel speed and brake pedal trajectory).
This is exactly what I mean.
>anything that autonomously makes intelligent decisions in response to changing environments.
So now you're trying to bandaid the definition even more. In the beginning of your comment your AI didn't require any intelligence but now it has to make intelligent decisions. How about you define intelligence before you start defining artificial intellgence? But this still wouldn't disqualify an ABS from your definition of AI since it most certainly does make intellignet decisions autonymously in response to changing environments.
I'm not patching up the definition -- I'm refusing to give a definition. As a consolation prize, I'm giving examples and discussing the degree to which they fit the central concept.
My stance is that "AI or not" is not an inherent way of dividing up systems in the universe. The best attempt to answer will provide a degree, rather than a binary yes/no. Further, the degree is based on utility to humans to think about the system that way. Thus no bright line, and a multitude of context-dependent factors that weigh towards or against it. If you must force a cut-off somewhere, then that threshold is context-dependent too.
