I'm not sure how much I agree with this. Yes, the term "AI" can be used as a sexy marketing term, but I don't think that inherently means that machine learning isn't AI. I've always considered AI to be a broad term referring to any sort of software that can adapt to unpredictable input. That includes things like min-max optimization, and even heuristic-based pathfinding algorithms. But it certainly, 100% includes machine learning as well. There's definitely been a shift in AI focus towards ML approaches, due in no small part to the success of transformers and GANs before them, but to claim that we shouldn't call them AI is like saying we shouldn't call an apple a fruit if a store has more apples than other fruits in it.