I think where we drifted apart was when I was paying attention to the usage of the word "anticipate".
If you run out of milk every week and buy more, an intelligent system would know to add it to the list even though you currently have milk. You also would probably want the system to figure out what bread_threshold was dynamically, rather than having to hard code it.

It kinda sounds like you're the one with the sci-fi conception of what AI is if you think that simple machine learning and pattern recognition algorithms aren't examples of it.

I'll let you in on a little secret in the field of AI as someone who's job is AI (computational linguistics); AI is, and has always been, mostly just a fancy word for algorithms, a bunch of if-else/switch/match statements. It doesn't have to be complex...

That being said, you're underestimating how much engineering would go into a program that calculates the groceries you need to buy and where/when. Especially so if it's supposed to be automated, e.g. you're not just putting in how much bread you have currently every time you use bread.