LLMs are AI. Markov text generators from the 1970s/80s are AI. Face recognition software like FaceID is AI. Many people behind LLMs got degrees under departments that have AI in their title.

AI is just computers doing things we typically associate with human intelligence, and having a conversation with a computer that effectively passes the Turing test, is definitely AI. If LLMs aren't AI, then AI isn't a useful term. (though agreed that LLMs aren't AGI, which I assume is what you're thinking of)

Wikipedia's list of AI applications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence#Applic...

My point is that they are a small subset of AI.

This is called the AI effect: we stop calling it AI when it works. Its goal post moving to keep the sci-fi term sci-fi.

There’s a similar thing with transhumanist “enhancement” or “life extension” stuff. When it actually works we call it medicine. Statistically one of the most powerful life extension techs ever developed was the cardiac bypass, which would have been sci-fi in 1900.

I’ve been using stuff like Claude Code and personally feel comfortable calling this stuff AI. Is it AGI? I don’t think so, but then again I’m not totally sure what that is. Am I AGI? I’m not universally able to handle all forms of cognition well and I can’t self modify much, so I’m not sure either. I’m not even sure if AGI is a well formed concept.

Intelligence is a pretty broad concept too. My pet rabbit is intelligent. Plants are intelligent. Bacteria are intelligent. Anything that can run an OODA loop, learn, adapt, and move toward a goal function is intelligent. By that definition some computer systems have been AI for decades. They’re just getting better.

I think there’s intelligence all around us. We just don’t get the wow factor from it unless it talks.