> It seems like the industry is just trying to do a cool parlor trick in convincing the masses this is somehow AI from science fiction.

If you gave a random sci-fi writer from 1960s access to Claude, I'm fairly sure they wouldn't have any doubts over whether it is AI or not. They might argue about philosophical matters like whether it has a "soul" etc (there's plenty of that in sci-fi), but that is a separate debate.