Sadly, like intelligence and reasoning, I think emergence is a word that people discuss while having different understandings of what the word means.

In the paper I linked, they talk of a particular take on the word that is commonly discussed in the ML research: between one discrete step and the next a phenomenon came into existence without existing before (i.e. it occurred spontaneously). The paper then goes on to refute specific claims. That's all I'm pointing out (I could point out similar issues with research into reasoning).

I think it's difficult to pin down "emergence" in the general sense as it likely goes into a deep philosophical argument like consciousness, so I'm unwilling to state whether or not some notion of "emergence" actually takes place. In that sense I agree with you.