What Is AI

Layer 2 · Mechanics

What Is AI

How AI systems are actually categorized by capability and by how they acquire their behavior.

8 min read70 XP

Reactive

no memory, e.g. chess engine

Limited memory

uses recent context, e.g. self-driving perception

Theory of mind

models others' beliefs (research)

Self-aware

science fiction, not engineering

A classic taxonomy of AI by capability — most deployed systems today are 'limited memory'.

A more useful engineering split than 'AI vs not-AI' is *how the behavior was produced*: was it programmed explicitly, or did it emerge from optimizing parameters against data?

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