Stating that "AI isn't even AI" because a few systems may involve the real-time participation of humans ignores the actual, demonstrable advances in the field of Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), often generally (but incorrectly) referred to as "AI".

You're conflating task work with AI.

Some companies like Fiverr, ClickWorker, TaskRabbit, UpWork AWS, and many more are open about humans performing task work. Some choose to at least temporarily use it to mask "holes" in their delivery abilities.

That doesn't invalidate the totality of actual AI.

https://www.mturk.com/

So, back to Clive's fascinating original points about sentience, consciousness, and "experience" vs "agency" ...