The author aludes to this and observes that as time goes by more software ideas are getting patented, which was barely done in the old days, and which he believ

The author aludes to this and observes that as time goes by more software ideas are getting patented, which was barely done in the old days, and which he believes slows down the innovation rate. I guess that maybe it also has something to do with (relatively) low hanging fruit, as many of the core problems got eventually solved. As for AI and NN, he has included backpropagation, which is the innovation that made NN practical. Also, the key innovation that is behind the current deep learning craze, GPUs, is a hardware innovation, so it's excluded. EDIT: The author says at the end: Note that there are few software innovation identified in recent times. I believe that part of the reason is that over the last number of years some key software markets have been controlled by monopolies. Monopolies typically inhibit innovation; a monopoly has a strong financial incentive to keep things more or less the way they are. EDIT: From the article: it’s difficult to identify the “most important” innovations within the last few years. Usually what is most important is not clear until years after its development. Software technology, like many other areas, is subject to fads. Most “exciting new technologies” are simply fashions that will turn out to be impractical (or only useful in a narrow niche), or are simply rehashes of old ideas with new names.