I concede there was a window of time where that was true. Too early, and AI had nothing to do with the current methods and tried a more symbolic approach. Too late (i.e. now) and the term has been pushed so hard by corpos (because of the superficial semantic reading "AI" => "intelligence" for marketing hype) and it means for a lot of people, whether you like it or not, "ChatGPT", and it alienated them.

Unproductive? Probably (and for sure in the context of your work). Pointless? Absolutely disagree when companies force that vision of intelligence on us. This has a social impact.

Now maybe this is pointless to you, and that's ok, but it's not to a lot of other people.