Back in 1989 they (Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons) had a hunch, spent a lot of their own money, and did some experiments. Others couldn't replicate it. That much is a step forward by "visiting wrong nodes" as you put it, trying out a dead end.

Leaving money out of it, my point is that they weren't doing fusion, they were doing fusion research. Their device was for fusion, but it was not a working fusion device. Similarly, the software of AI researchers is not working AI software, and they are not doing AI, apart from semantic shift where we call it AI now anyway and created the term AGI to replace the former meaning.

It's not correct to say that an experiment, with the intent of finding out how to do a thing, is equal to the goal. It's a step.

Calling it "incremental" is misleading since all steps are incremental, and assuming you're doggedly determined and exit blind alleys and circles, you will eventually arrive, if the destination exists. But "incremental" suggests you know the distance and know how far there is to go, or at least can put a bound on it, and know in some sense which way. Like the whole thing is planned.

So saying that AI "is anything in the last 70 years utilizing a machine that could be considered an incremental steps towards [AI]" is misleading, in both those ways. The process is not the goal, and the goal is not being approached at a known rate.