If we don't keep trying to make AI, we're never gonna get there. I'm not saying data mining is AI. I'm saying human brains do data mining too, but differently, and figuring out how is what might come of all this.
Wolfram-Alpha-style natural language programming actually isn't that bad because it's a dialogue. The thing tells you its assumptions, so you're back to formal representations you can deal with. Natural language is mostly statistics, also known as guesswork. A machine can guess better than humans. Google proves that by suggesting "torrent" every time you search for a movie title.
Dijkstra fears a world where the lack of formalisms prevents progress. That's why he likes formalisms. I do too, maybe not for these exact reasons. Anyway, I take formalisms as a given because they've always been there my whole life.
Formalisms can be impractically formal. The level of precision required by machines is beyond even what most mathematicians are used to casually (i.e., pen and paper, or at a blackboard). If you had to do math like you write code, mathematicians would go bonkers. Include this, type-cast that, ... nah, everyone knows what this and that is supposed to mean, right?
A little NLP could make it easier to command computers. A little more NLP could turn machines into really useful slaves. AI would be opening a can of worms few in this world are prepared to deal with.