Why is AI going in the wrong direction?

For decades, we have been saying, AI will come along and it will take over the menial work, releasing us humans to do the more creative work that is more fun.

But, it seems that the AI has moved into the creative space and is just leaving the more menial and mind-numbing stuff for humans to do.

Why do we need AI generated videos, for example, why not leave that up to somebody who is creative and use the AI to do the menial frame-by-frame touching up and remastering of old videos?

Why are we letting AI write stories for the press or for books? Surely that is the purview of humans, shouldn’t the AI be checking the spelling and grammar, before the stories are posted?

Shouldn’t AI and automation be doing the menial tasks on the production line, freeing up humans to do something more interesting instead?

Is it because these menial tasks are also uninteresting to program for and hard to get 100% accurate? It is much more fun to get the AI to do some squiggly lines, you can see it is doing something quickly, and it comes up with pretty pictures. It is much more fun to get it to write an article or a story than it is to get it to recognise a widget on a production line and reject those with defects.

Is AI pandering to the programmers of the AI and their funders, not to the potential uses, where it makes the most sense? We people want that short-sharp endorphin high, the instant gratification, not the hard slog to actually do something useful.