Generative AI is obviously more fun and productizable than classification, recognition, and recommendation AI, but is it also more technically and philosophically significant?

I personally think yes. In fact I think generative AI subsumes those other categories. All intelligence is generative

Blogger at ribbonfarm.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

You can ask a generative AI to classify, recommend, or recognize. The reverse is not true. GenAI is a qualitative level up, not yet another application category.

This checks out, at least by analogy: 
We attribute more skill to creators than curators

But we need to keep free speech and not abuse on wokism and let « someone » control it