DeepDream is an apt example on a deeper level of analogy. What they wanted was an advance in the important topic of interpretability/explainability. Offshot of a failed experiment turned into the subfield of style transfer and pretty pictures. That became a success of AI somehow, one to talk about and dazzle audience with.

About the OP ignorance, well, statistics started off as a social science, so maybe self professed data scientists while looking into social sciences, ethics and psychology, could also look about history.