Consider that maybe AI should mean AGI. That was what its original meaning was supposed to be, and calling generative models AI is watering down the original term and accepting the frame of the LLM makers.
What's really disappointing about current LLM models isn't that they aren't useful, but that they really tell us much about intelligence at all. The techniques used to make LLMs aren't generalizable at all, and I cannot use them to solve problems of interest in the real world.
That wouldn't be the case with real AI. I want better methods and algorithms that could live up to the expectations, and I am sure we'll get them at some point even if we don't have them now.
The history of AI is people deciding that it really means AGI but then getting enamored with some method of the time and calling it AI, before going back to the original meaning. We're just living through the latest iteration of this where LLMs mean AI, and we're forced to invent the term AGI for what used to be AI.
I'll admit that to the people who don't know how LLMs work, which includes most investors, the lie seems very plausible so of course the CEOs running the companies are going to frame it as such.
AI has included everything from neural nets to video game NPCs for as long as I'm aware of. What else is the broad umbrella term? We have to have one. And for anything else, you need to be specific about its properties anyway. In particular, usage of "real AI" is nonsense without a more precise definition.
It isn't nonsense. If AI was such a broad umbrella term, why would companies be tripping over themselves to use it? If it meant video game NPC level of intelligence, nobody would be in a hurry to adopt it. It's very clear that when Nvidia or OpenAI use the term AI, they really want you to think these LLMs are actual human level intelligence. That is why they are doing it.
When I use nonsense like "real AI" I think you very well know what I mean, and don't find it in any way confusing or ambiguous.
Everyone thinks they know what "real AI" means, but they usually mean some mishmash of "general intelligence", "human-like intelligence", and "deserves moral rights", none of which firmly imply each other but which they'll often freely equivocate between. If you mean something more specific than this semantic disaster zone, say that instead.
AI company marketing usage only indicates they're trying to take advantage of this confusion. They're bullshit artists who are trying to make sales, not communicate.