AI effect

The AI effect refers to people's inclination to discount advances in artificial intelligence after they've been accomplished, as an apparent consequence of coming to understand how that aspect of intelligence works. This discounting is often expressed by redefining the requirements for or description of "intelligent" behaviour.

The idea is expressed by Tesler's Theorem: "AI is whatever hasn't been done yet."

Motivation
This change of perception can be traced to the mystery being removed from the system: that being able to trace the cause of events implies that it's a form of automation rather than intelligence. Michael Kearns suggests that "people subconsciously are trying to preserve for themselves some special role in the universe".. By discounting artificial intelligence people can continue to feel unique and special.

A related effect has been noted in the history of animal cognition and in consciousness studies, where every time a capacity formerly thought as uniquely human is discovered in animals (e.g. the ability to make tools, or passing the mirror test), the overall importance of that capacity is deprecated.