It's a better term than "algorithm" or "learner" or "AI". It very literally is a model of the relationships within the training data. Moreover, statisticians

It's a better term than "algorithm" or "learner" or "AI". It very literally is a model of the relationships within the training data. Moreover, statisticians and other varieties of people doing data analysis have been using the term "model" to mean something along these lines for many decades already. If anything, it's nice to see more people calling these things "models".