I think what people are struggling to articulate is that, the way AI gets thrown around now, it's basically being used as a replacement for the word "algorithm".

It's obfuscating the truth that this is all (relatively) comprehensible mathematics. Even the black box stuff. Just because the programmer doesn't know each step the end program takes, doesn't mean they don't know the principals behind how it was made, or didn't make deliberate choices to shape the outcome.

There's some very neat mathematics, yes, and an utterly staggering amount of data and hardware. But at the end of the day its still just an (large) algorithm. Calling it AI is dubious at best, and con-artistry at worst.