FWIW, 10+ years ago I was arguing that your old pocket calculator is as much of an AI as anything ever could be. I only kinda stopped doing that because it's tiring to argue with silly buzzwords, not because anything has changed since. When "these things were called ML" ML was just a buzzword, same as AI and AGI are now. I'm kinda glad "ML" was relieved of that burden, because ultimately it means a very real thing (which is just "parametrizing your algorithm by non-hardcoded values"), and (unlike with basic autocorrect, which no end user even perceives as "AI" or "ML") when you use ChatGPT, you don't use "ML", you use a rigid algorithm not meaningfully different from what was running on your old pocket calculator, except a billion times bigger and no one actually knows what it does.
So, yes, AI is just a stupid marketing buzzword right now, but so was ML, so was blockchain, so was NoSQL and many more. Ultimately this one is more annoying only because of scale, of how detrimental to society the actions of the culpable people (mostly OpenAI, Altman, Musk) were this time.
"AI" is the only term that makes sense for end users because "AI" is the only term that is universally understood. Hackernews types tend to overlook the layman.
And I hope no one gets started about how "AI" is an inaccurate term because it's not. That's exactly what we are doing: simulating intelligence. "ML" is closer to describing the implementation, and, honestly, what difference does it make for most people using it.
It is appropriate to discuss these things at a very high level in most contexts.
Right now? John McCarthy invented the term in order to get a grant, or in other words it was a marketing buzzword from day zero. He says so himself in the lighthill debate, and then the audience breaks out into hoots and howls.
FWIW, 10+ years ago I was arguing that your old pocket calculator is as much of an AI as anything ever could be. I only kinda stopped doing that because it's tiring to argue with silly buzzwords, not because anything has changed since. When "these things were called ML" ML was just a buzzword, same as AI and AGI are now. I'm kinda glad "ML" was relieved of that burden, because ultimately it means a very real thing (which is just "parametrizing your algorithm by non-hardcoded values"), and (unlike with basic autocorrect, which no end user even perceives as "AI" or "ML") when you use ChatGPT, you don't use "ML", you use a rigid algorithm not meaningfully different from what was running on your old pocket calculator, except a billion times bigger and no one actually knows what it does.
So, yes, AI is just a stupid marketing buzzword right now, but so was ML, so was blockchain, so was NoSQL and many more. Ultimately this one is more annoying only because of scale, of how detrimental to society the actions of the culpable people (mostly OpenAI, Altman, Musk) were this time.