This isn't really the AI effect. Manually entering in facts and actually learning them from observations are very different things.

Machine learning can be defined as the machine augmented aquisition of knowledge through observation. It has been an integral part of AI research since 1957. The fact that you have separated Machine Learning from Artificial Intelligence is a perfect example of the AI effect.

I see what the article did there; switching from "real intelligence" to "intelligent behaviour". Not that "real intelligence" is well defined, sure; but that also means you can't just claim you achieved it nilly-willy.

Michael Kearns suggests that "people subconsciously are trying to preserve for themselves some special role in the universe". By discounting artificial intelligence people can continue to feel unique and special.

Right. Then why do I have no problem, and actually enjoy, noticing similarities between me and other animals or even plants? Even two electrons occupying different places at the same time could be argued to both be "unique and special".

What would make humans special in the face of even the most advanced AI is that we built it... and who, other than a lunatic or someone escaping from themselves, would look up to persons in a play he wrote? Don't mistake for jealousy what could also be explained with paying attention, that'd be my suggestion.

The article merely explains how perceptions are formed of AI research as a failure of capturing the essence of intelligence. Once an aspect of intelligence is understood, replicated, or improved on, it is no longer intelligent...it is reduced to mere computation. AI may not have captured the essence of human intelligence yet, but it seems to be doing pretty well with substantial aspects of it, given the fact that Humans have had a 200,000 year head start.