An example may clarify.
When more sunscreen is purchased, more swimsuits are purchased. This does not mean, however, that the sunscreen seeps into our skin, makes its way to our brain, and tells us to buy swimsuits. There is another underlying factor at play: it is summer, so people are going to the beach and the pool a lot and need both sunscreen and new swimsuits. That is, there is a mere correlation between sunscreen sales and swimsuits sales, nothing causal.
Nonetheless, if you, for whatever reason, did not have access to a calendar or a thermometer, if you wanted to know when your clothing store should have a large inventory of swimsuits, an uptick in sunscreen sales might be a reliable predictor of the demand for new swimsuits. That is, despite the lack of a causal mechanism between the sunscreen and the swimsuits, you might be able to have a reasonably accurate predictive model (a simple form of AI/ML) using sunscreen to make your predictions about swimsuits.
Note, however, that if it became popular to wear sunscreen all year and not just in the summer (this was recommended at my last physical), such a predictor about swimsuits would fail to make good predictions about swimsuit demand when summer hits, since sunscreen is not the true causal mechanism. Nonetheless, the mere correlation may be a reliable predictor in many cases and may be the best you can expect to get in a complicated situation.