[Ads-l] Quote: As soon as it works, no one calls it AI anymore (Attributed to John McCarthy)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) researchers tackled a variety
of challenging problems. One early goal was the development of
symbolic mathematics systems capable of  performing polynomial
factorization, integration, and differentiation. Researchers made such
great progress that this field was reclassified. It was no longer part
of AI; instead, it became a subfield of algorithm design and analysis.

In general, if a problem is effectively solvable then it is no longer
deemed an appropriate task for AI. (This attitude may be obsolete.)

The saying in the subject line was attributed to John McCarthy in
three books I have read: "Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers,
Strategies" (2014) by Nick Bostrom; "Artificial Intelligence: A Guide
for Thinking Humans" (2019) by Melanie Mitchell; and "The Coming Wave:
Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma"
(2023) by Mustafa Suleyman. The three books each cited a 2012 article
by Moshe Vardi for support, but 2012 is a rather late date.

This inspired me to explore the saying, and now there is a Quote
Investigator article available:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/06/20/not-ai/

The saying was posthumously attributed to John McCarthy by Bertrand
Meyer in October 2011. That is still a late date. If someone finds an
earlier attribution to McCarthy please let me know.

This notion is difficult to trace because it can be expressed in many
different ways. Below is an overview showing the evolution via key
statements together with dates:

1971: AI is a collective name for problems which we do not yet know
how to solve properly by computer [Attributed to Bertram Raphael by
Donald Michie]

1979: Every time somebody figured out how to make a computer do
something--play good checkers, solve simple but relatively informal
problems--there was a chorus of critics to say, but that's not
thinking [Pamela McCorduck]

1979: AI is whatever hasn't been done yet [Attributed to Larry Tesler
by Douglas Hofstadter]

1982 May: If it's useful, it isn't AI [Anonymous]

1982 Sep: If you can understand how it works, it isn't AI [Anonymous]

1983 May: If you do know what you're doing (or if you find out), it
isn't AI anymore [Beau Sheil]

1984: If it works, it isn't AI [Anonymous]

1984 Feb: Anything computers can't yet do is AI [Anonymous]

1984 Sep: It it's useful, it isn't AI [Anonymous]

1985 If you understand how it works, it isn't AI [Anonymous]

1985 Apr: When an AI idea is turned into a useful system, in some
sense it isn't AI anymore [Roger Schank and Larry Hunter]

1985 Jun: Once they are thoroughly solved, they are not AI anymore but
just another computer program [Severo Ornstein]

1988: If it works, it isn't AI [Attributed to Edward Feigenbaum]

2011 Oct: As soon as it works, no one calls it AI anymore [Attributed
to John McCarthy by Bertrand Meyer]

2017: Intelligence is whatever machines haven't done yet [Attributed
to Larry Tesler by Garry Kasparov]

Feedback welcome,
Garson

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