That’s the interesting thing about empire, it’s self similar. A whole class of people may grow up geographically in or near the core, but their experience of life has more in common with someone in the semi- or outer periphery in terms of access to necessities or stability of life.
“AI” will never shake the connotations science fiction has given it. The association is always going to skew towards positronic brains and Commander Data.
In the world of Actual Machines, “AI” is a term that should barely be tolerated in advertising departments, let alone anything remotely close to R&D