There seems to be an impulse to deny the AI progress that people see in front of them. When IBM Watson won on Jeopardy, everyone claimed it was cheating because

There seems to be an impulse to deny the AI progress that people see in front of them. When IBM Watson won on Jeopardy, everyone claimed it was cheating because, after all, "everyone knows the answers, so Jeopardy is really only about who presses the button first". But what about the fact that a computer could know the answers at all, and so quickly? Many people didn't think it was possible, and as soon as it happens they attack the speed of the button press as if knowing the answer wasn't the hard part. Anyone with this point of view does not seem to understand what is being shown here. This is not just "this ai beat this one player in this one match". It's an entire system of techniques for machine learning. The AI was not hard coded to learn those micro steps, like all other AIs have been. To ignore those things is to miss the point entirely.