AI is a marketing term for various kinds of machine learning applications.
AI is an academic field within computer science.
AI is the computer-controlled enemies you face in (especially, but not solely, offline) games.
This has been the case for decades now—especially the latter two.
Trying to claim that AI either "has always been" one particular thing, or "has now become" one particular thing, is always going to run into trouble because of this multiplicity. The one thing that AI "has always been" is multiple things.
AI is a marketing term for various kinds of machine learning applications.
AI is an academic field within computer science.
AI is the computer-controlled enemies you face in (especially, but not solely, offline) games.
This has been the case for decades now—especially the latter two.
Trying to claim that AI either "has always been" one particular thing, or "has now become" one particular thing, is always going to run into trouble because of this multiplicity. The one thing that AI "has always been" is multiple things.