Can you really imagine a group of scientists sitting around a large computer cluster and saying "Well, we could create the first sentient AI and ensure our names are enshrined in the history books, but why bother?"
Games also work as argument against his uploading argument that we are ill-equipped for living in virtual worlds. From all experience so far we _love_ living in virtual environments. There's already enough people which nearly ignore their bodies for hours and live in games like WoW instead.
Climbing mountains doesn't seem that comparable to going to the moon.
Scientists need funding in order to act if it requires many man years.
Thus military uses of AI are likely to be well funded to the tune of hundreds of millions if not billions because they can be viewed as a strategic necessity if it seems like the Chinese could possibly develop an AI before us. But if the general feeling is that a real AI isn't feasible in both Chinese and US circles in the near or medium term future, or there are more valuable/useful near and medium term objectives, there will not be a well funded race to create one.
Also, what about Art? What a useless waste of brainpower, yet we keep doing it for thousands of years.
So yeah, I agree that X might very well be possible (or in widespread usage) in 50 or 100 years, where X is basically anything that seems magical today.