I'll repeat what I said earlier for emphasis. You HAVE to define the terms, it is imperative! As an industry, we need to get really good at that, and quickly, or else we are going to do a lot of talking right past each other!
No offense intended at all Jay, but I want to use your statement above to illustrate why the definition of terms matters so much. Saying "I don't believe that anyone is truly offering A.I." may instantly call into question your understanding of the terms and their meaning. I believe you were using the term AI as a substitute for a subset of AI. That position could be defensible depending on the specific discipline, but the statement above is not. Using the broad term kills the conversation. There is a lot of AI in automotive.
AI is defined by Webster's as "a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers; the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior." By that definition, the bar for "what is AI" is as low as automation. AI is absolutely offered in this industry today. Alex's cartoon that started this post depicts actual AI. A machine is "simulating intelligent human behavior" by following a rudimentary, predefined, and binary workflow (this is called encoded knowledge). Is it sexy? No. Is it WestWorld quality, fleshy, sentient beings? Not even close. But is it AI? Yes, it absolutely is.
My opinion only, but vendors need to go a step deeper than "we use AI" in their product descriptions since anything that simulates intelligence qualifies. It's a little like a dealer saying "we sell cars" to a consumer, the follow-up question is "what kind of cars do you sell?" In the same way, when a vendor says "we use AI," a dealer should respond "what subset of AI does your product use?"
