“AI” is a description, not the thing itself. Are we missing a word?

We keep talking about “AI” as if it were the name of an entity. But artificial intelligence is not the entity. It is a description. Intelligence is a property, a capacity, a quality. It is not itself a thing. So when we say “AI,” what are we actually referring to? the field? the capability? the model? the system? the outputs? the supposed “being” behind it? It seems like one loose term is being forced to do the work of several different concepts at once. That is why AI discussions get muddy so fast.