I was talking about attempts such as expert systems. We attempted to symbolically encode things as sums of their parts in plain terms, e.g. a bicycle is two whe

I was talking about attempts such as expert systems. We attempted to symbolically encode things as sums of their parts in plain terms, e.g. a bicycle is two wheels, an axle, a chain, some peddles, etc. but in more detail than that. The problem is the level of detail required for general knowledge: firstly it is hard to codify, secondly as it grows computation becomes exponentially more expensive. We as humans have the intelligence to simply see for fractions of a second and then just know — we can know the answers to math problems and how a person is feeling. The symbolic AI programming was an attempt to codify what symbols we are seeing but they are so diverse and nuanced it became apparent this was an ineffective scientific route.