Um, no. First: thermostats haven’t been around forever (they were popularized by Mark Honeywell in 1906, of Honeywell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_C._Hone

Um, no. First: thermostats haven’t been around forever (they were popularized by Mark Honeywell in 1906, of Honeywell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_C._Honeywell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_C._Honeywell). Second: autopilot wasn’t invented until 1914 (before computers). Third: the Wikipedia article you refer to totally aligns with what I’m claiming: “An intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. Any system that has goal-directed behavior can be analyzed as an intelligent agent: something as simple as a thermostat, as complex as a human being, as well as large systems such as firms, biomes or nations. The intelligent agent paradigm became widely accepted during the 1990s, and currently serves as the definition of the field.”