I think the central question is, "Is artificial intelligence really intelligent ?".

At one end of the scale, it could be seen as just really fast computing with access to a huge database it can rapidly use to assemble answers in a pre-programmed way. At the other end of the scale, perhaps humans are the midwives of an entirely new form of intelligence.

So a related question could be "Are humans anything more than a pile of meat doing chemical interactions to preserve and replicate itself ?"

Personally, I'm at the "AI is a powerful and useful tool" stage. To me, it becomes more than that when it replicates and develops a moral perspective. Until then, we've made Shoggoths and there's a terrible risk that we could inadvertently make Berserkers if we allow them to slip beyond human control.