This is a special post for quick takes by Dalton Mabery. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
The central question of AI seems to be:
Can computers do something they haven’t explicitly been told to do by their creator?
I could be way off here, but this seems like a simple ELI5 thesis for someone who doesn’t know much about AI or what the point of it all is.