Why Your Toaster Isn’t AI (But Your Coffee Maker Might Be) Have you ever wondered why your toaster doesn’t get accused of “thinking too hard,” but a self-driving car suddenly feels like it’s plotting a road trip without you? Welcome to the wild world of AI definitions, where the line between “just a machine” and “intelligent system” is blurrier than a morning without coffee. The European Union’s new AI Act - a legal playbook for the algorithmic age - has finally drawn that line, and it’s weirder (and more fascinating) than you’d think. When Is a Machine More Than a Machine? Decoding the EU’s AI System Definition Let’s start with a riddle: What do a chess-playing computer, a Netflix recommendation engine, and a Roomba vacuum cleaner have in common? They’re all “AI systems” under the EU’s rules, but not because they’re sentient. It’s because they meet a checklist of traits that make them “smart enough” to fall under the law’s watchful eye. Think of it as the EU giving AI an ID card - ...
