You know what the G stands for in AGI? General intelligence. You could measure a plane on general versatility in air and it would lose against a bird. You could also measure it against energy consumption. There are a lot of things you can measure a lot of them are pointless, a lot of articles on HN are pointless.
There are very valid reasons to measure that. You wouldn’t ask a plane to drive you to the neighbor or to buy you groceries at the supermarket. It’s not general mobile as you are, but it increases your mobility
Planes aren't trying to replace birds. ML is trying to replace humans, so unless they also demonstrate that quick learning ability isn't necessary to perform the tasks a human does the measures still make sense.