So what is AI, then?

The name artificial intelligence does not describe one particular mechanism.

It is a field, and a loose label, for machines that perform tasks people associate with intelligence. Recognising speech, planning moves in a game, finding patterns in medical scans, and generating text have all been called AI.

Some AI systems follow rules written by people. Others learn patterns from examples. Many products combine both. Machine learning is one way to build AI, not another name for the whole field.

The chatbot or image generator you happen to see most often is one use of AI, not a map of the whole field.

The label can tell you what kind of ability someone is claiming. It does not tell you how the machine works.