If you think they're announcing AGI as a marketing decision, you are blinded by the accidents of your birth. Capitalism is strong -- humanity's instinct for communal preservation is stronger, sometimes.

And yes, the one deeply-researched field going back 75 years is as scientifically rigorous as another deeply-researched field going back ~100 years. I guess you can draw climate studies back to Descartes and the Islamic golden age, but that doesn't privilege it in a time where the methods have changed completely in the span of decades.