I don't think that's what happening. Let's talk about this case: programming. It's not that people are saying "an AI programming" isn't impressive or isn't AI, it's that when people say "an AI programming" they aren't talking about ridiculously controlled environments like in this case.
It's like self-driving cars. A car driving itself for the first time in a controlled environment, I'm sure, was an impressive feat, and it wouldn't be inaccurate to call it a self-driving car. However, that's not what we're all waiting for when we talk about the arrival of self-driving cars.
And if AI programming were limited to completely artificial contexts you would have a point, though I'd still be concerned. We live in a world, however, where programmers routinely call on the powers of an AI to complete their real code and get real value out of it. This is based on the same technology that brought us this particular win, so clearly this technology is useful outside "ridiculously controlled environments."
That's not significantly different than how programming has worked for the last 40 years though. We slowly push certain types of decisions and tasks down into the tools we use, and what's left over is what we call 'programming'. It's cool, no doubt, but as long as companies need to hire 'prorammers', then it's not the huge thing we're all looking out over the horizon waiting for.
Programmers do setup completely artificial contexts so AI can work.
None of the self driving systems where setup by giving the AI access to sensors, a car, and the drivers handbook and saying well you figure it out from there. The general trend is solve this greatly simplified problem, this more complex one, up to dealing with the real world.
By AI programming I mean the AI doing programming, not programming the AI. Though soon enough the first will be doing the second and that's where the loop really closes...
It's like self-driving cars. A car driving itself for the first time in a controlled environment, I'm sure, was an impressive feat, and it wouldn't be inaccurate to call it a self-driving car. However, that's not what we're all waiting for when we talk about the arrival of self-driving cars.