Probably only because every CS undergrad or self-trained person sees at least a few search algorithms. So although they probably couldn't write a performant che

Probably only because every CS undergrad or self-trained person sees at least a few search algorithms. So although they probably couldn't write a performant chess-playing program, they get the general idea. I expect in 20 years undergraduate curricula evolve to cover NNs, and then those courses will have their salient bits adopted into mass market expository books/blog posts/code examples/etc. At that point someone like you will be saying something like you said about whatever the new hotness is.