What about generative models is really AI, other than the fact that they rely on some similar ideas from machine learning that are found in actual AI applications? Yes, maybe to an average person these are witchcraft, but any advanced technology can appear that way---Deep Blue beating Kasparov probably was witchcraft to the uninitiated. This is curve fitting, and the same approaches in 1999 were also trying to fit curves, it's just that we can fit them way better than before right now. Even the exact methods that are used to produce your examples are not fundamentally new, they are just the same old ideas with the same old weaknesses. What we have right now is a huge hammer, and a hammer is surely useful, but not the only thing needed to build AI. Calling these witchcraft is a marketing move that we definitely don't need, creates unnecessary hype, and hides the simplicity and the naivete of the methods used in producing them. If anybody else reads this, these are just increasing numbers, not witchcraft. But as the numbers increase it requires a little more effort and knowledge to debunk them.
I'm not dismissing things for the fun of it, but it pains me to see this community waste so many resources in pursuit of a local minimum due to lack of a better sense of direction. I feel like not much more is to be gained from this conversation, although it was fun, and thank you for responding.