Artificial Intelligence is any device that perceives its environment  and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal.I got this definition from Wikipedia that cited Russell and Norvig (2003), Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach.A transistor is a device that amplifies or switches electronic signals when it received an input signal.Could one say the transistor is the AI?It is certainly a basic building block of every AI out there, but is it an AI itself, albeit the most basic one?I'm looking at it from a technological and economic point of view, leaving philosophy aside. From an economic perspective it seems to be an AI because transistor does useful work that it took an intelligent human to perform less than a century ago. And it does it completely on its own.
Is transistor the first artificial intelligence?
history