Strictly speaking, expert systems are AI as well, as in, an expert comes up with a bunch of if/else rules. So yes technically speaking even if they didn’t acquire the weights using ML and hand-coded them, it could still be called AI.
replyIt is 100% valid to label an algorithm that plays tic-tac-toe as "AI"
replyMuch of the early AI research was spent on developing various algorithms that could play board games.
Didn't even need computers, one early AI was MENACE [1], a set of 304 matchboxes which could learn how to play noughts and crosses.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchbox_Educable_Noughts_and_...
Yup this is exactly my point, in the 80s there were plenty of “AI” companies and “fuzzy logic” was the buzzword of the day.
replyI built the Matchbox for Hexapawn, detailed in National Geographic Kids!
replyI didn't know what a Jujube was, but I got the idea.