AI isn't really a thing per se and it adds a kind of patina of false mystique to computation that is essentially no different than any other computation (which

AI isn't really a thing per se and it adds a kind of patina of false mystique to computation that is essentially no different than any other computation (which itself is also not really "a thing" out there in the world as a phenomenon). The only way AI really means anything is because the person in question has decided to frame something as AI. He is choosing to append to something meaning that it itself does not possess. Take a the linear regression type stuff lots of AI today uses. You put that in another context and it ceases to be AI. Why? Because it's not AI per se! If it were a real thing or real phenomenon, it would be mind-independent and the mental context wouldn't determine its identity. Basically, it seems that whenever someone mechanizes something that previous only a thinking person could do, then its viewed as AI.