None of this is remotely "intelligent." in actuality or metaphorically.

What you describe sounds like typical, long-existing, semi-automated search, a pig with lipstick. Marketing departments throw "AI" into their copywriting and....ta da!...instant fad rebranding of old tech into "new", only with serious (and dangerous) deficiencies...something I have witnessed firsthand. This all looks and sounds like the follow-the-leader, ride-the-wave, trend marketing reminiscent of the novelty phrases "digital sound" and "digital sound ready" used to hype a bogus concept in the early days of music CDs, hyping not just the CD medium, but speakers and headphones.

And with a massive increase in computational resources needed to achieve stunted, take-with-a-grain-of-salt, caveat emptor results.

I see this happening everywhere now in photography. Aspects of AI have been part of editing apps for years but now they all are rushing to roll out new version numbers so they can hype as being newly AI-enhanced and charge for the "upgrade."

But I fully agree that we need to delve into who and what is behind the curtain. We know only what they want us to know, told in the way they want us to perceive it. I think these new generative toys, especially those for producing imagery, are deliberate consumer toys, public pablum, digital crack, and deliberate distractive misdirection.

Exhortation to be regulated was Altman's cagey, deliberate preemption asking for a process he knows the government will not actually be controlling.