These comments often indicate a lack of understanding about ai.
Ml algorithms have been in use for nearly 50 years. They certainly become much more common since about 2012, particularly with the development of CUDA, It’s not just some new trend or buzz word.
Rather, what we starting to see are the fruits of our labour. There are so many really hard problems that just cannot be solved with deductive reasoning.
It's simultaneously possible to realize that something is useful while also recognizing the damage that its trend is causing from a sustainability standpoint, and that neither realization particularly demonstrates a lack of understanding about AI.