AI built from explicit symbols, logic and rules written by people, dominant from the 1950s to the 1980s. It contrasts with today's AI, which learns from data.
AARON obviously is early; it employs symbolic AI. It's a kind of expert, procedural system that operates on the basis of rules and hasn't been trained on previously existing images.
Christiane Paul, Christiane Paul on Curating Cohen’s AARON
There has been this intense, historical rivalry between symbolic AI and neural network-based approaches—going back to the late ‘60s and Minsky.
Peter Bauman, Christiane Paul on Defining AI Art