Well I see your point, but I’d suggest that it only stands in a casual/commercial context, research have been using it as an umbrella for the three paradigms I mentioned

You cannot invalidate what is called AI just because of the advancements in the fields, what you just described although simple is indeed AI and automation was humanities first attempt at AI anyways. On the other hand yes OPs point of view is invalid and I think that’s just part of the meme

Not quite, AI is split into three paradigms: symbolic, connectionist and semi-symbolic, you only considered the connectionist one