Sorry, maybe 'cartoon' was the wrong word :), I just mean, that because we don't understand all the intricacies of the human condition, we fill in the blanks with an idea of what we are and what makes us tick, we don't/can't actually know. In this same way, we 'decide' what AI might be ... without actually knowing.

'getting a grasp on 'AI', is not synonymous with its existence', by that I simply mean, that it does not necessarily require our knowledge or understanding of it, for it to exist. It might easily occur independently of that condition. Like Toxoplasmosis, we had no knowledge of its existence, yet there it is, for hundreds of thousands of years, doing its thing. As far as Toxoplasmosis is concerned, it simply demonstrates, the subtlety of our conditioning.