In the U.S., the definition of AI varies across jurisdictions and legal frameworks.

At the federal level, definitions of AI have appeared in several laws, including the National AI Initiative Act, reflected in 15 U.S.C. § 9401, which defines AI as follows:

“(3) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE – The term ‘artificial intelligence’ means a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. Artificial intelligence systems use machine and human-based inputs to:

(A) perceive real and virtual environments;

(B) abstract such perceptions into models through analysis in an automated manner; and

(C) use model inference to formulate options for information or action.”

State laws have also used different definitions of AI. Below are two variants.

Colorado’s AI Act does not provide a standalone definition of AI, but rather regulates AI systems as: 

“Any machine-based system that, for any explicit or implicit objective, infers from the inputs the system received how to generate outputs, including content, decisions, predictions, or recommendations, that can influence physical or virtual environments.” (C.R.S. § 6-1-1701(2)) 

Utah’s AI Policy Act carves out Generative AI as: 

“An artificial system that: (i) is trained on data; (ii) interacts with a person using text, audio, or visual communication; and (iii) generates nonscripted outputs similar to outputs created by a human, with limited or no human oversight.” (Utah Code § 13-2-12(1)(a))