I don't know what your perception of my original sentiment is, so let me elaborate. People generally assume, likely because of the astronomical rate of quality

I don't know what your perception of my original sentiment is, so let me elaborate. People generally assume, likely because of the astronomical rate of quality of life expansion due to technology and engineering in the 1900s, that things keep "going forward" at some rate. Often they think this rate is exponential. I see people citing AI implementation engineering as their primary examples of this. It's frustrating because it's not true. AI is old. That's fine and good and wholesome. But there is no real progress in AI theory, it's all practical engineering. Unfortunately, theory and engineering are often conflated with "technological progress" without realizing the former limits the latter with a very hard ceiling.