isitai

Is it AI?

Once ChatGPT became so popular, large tech companies realized that AI was the hot new buzzword, and suddenly, everything they did was being framed as AI. So here are some examples of things that may or may not actually involve AI.

A heating system in your house monitors the temperature. When it gets too cold, it automatically turns on the heat. When it gets too hot, it turns off the heat. Is this AI?

No. This can be done with a mechanical system (a spring that expands/contracts based on temperature). It’s a simple example of a feedback system.

That heating system tends to turn the heat on and off many times per day: as soon as it’s a little too warm, the heat turns off. When it’s a little too cool, it turns on. So a new, improved system is made, which, instead of keeping the room at (say) 70 degrees, tries to keep it between 69 and 71. When it’s above 71, it turns off; when it gets down to 69, it turns on. Is this AI?

No. This is another feedback system, with a property called hysterisis (a very old concept).

A new heating system understands weekends! During the week, it adjusts the temperature during the day to be cooler; but on weekends (when people are usually in the house during the day), it keeps the house warmer. Is this AI?

No. If this system it controlled by a computer, it needs nothing more complex that an “if” statement (more generally, a “conditional statement”). Pretty much every (generally-used) programming language (going back more than half a century) includes conditional statements.

A light outside your house detects when someone walks by at night and automatically turns on. Is this AI?

No. This can be done without any sort of computer: a photodetector can determine whether or not it’s dark outside; a simple ultrasonic sensor can detect motion; and a small transistor circuit can combine those to exhibit the intended behavior.

My calendar program knows when it’s my birthday, and sends me a Happy Birthday! email each year, right at midnight. Is this AI?

No. While it’s certainly a nice feature, this is another example of conditional statements in code.

My calendar program not only sends me a birthday email, but the top of it included a picture of flowers. I love flowers! How did it know? Is this AI?

Not necessarily. If the calendar has access to your social media, it may have simply selected a picture that accompanied one of your posts with a smiley emoji.

Okay, a system has a camera, and detects when a bird appears outside the window, and automatically takes a picture. Is this AI?

Probably not. It is an example of image recognition, which, beyond simply recognizing an image as a bird, involves more complex tasks such as filtering out background images and accounting for birds in different locations, orientations or poses. As AI has advanced, image recognition has improved, and has become more accessible to people with relatively simple equipment (such as a RaspberryPi). Some of the systems that are most accessible for image recognition were developed using training methods, which are associated with things like large language models (chatbots). But such an image recognition system certainly does not (and has no need to) understand what a bird is.

With my music streaming service, when a playlist I’ve made finishes, it continues playing music that it picks for me. It always finds some new songs that I end up really liking! Is this AI?

Probably not. Taking the songs in your playlist, a program can look at other people’s playlists that have some of the same songs. Among those lists, it can pick, say, the 50 songs at appear most often in common, and play those for you.