Actually I endorse the fact that we are less shy of calling "AI" algorithms that do exhibit emergent intelligence and broad knowledge. AI uses to be a legitimate name for the field that encompasses ML and we do understood a lot of interesting things about intelligence thanks to LLMs nowadays, like the fact that training on next-word-prediction is enough to create pretty complex world models, that transformer architectures are capable of abstraction or that morality arise naturally when you try to acquire all the pre-requisites to have a normal discussion with a human.

I mean, what are most of us doing ever at all for all of history if not validating our individual egos in one way or another?

What is science even for if not the validation of some human's individual ego.

Satisfaction of personal curiosity with goverment funding