In terms of its origins, and the core algorithms, I agree neural networks have many decades on them. However until the hardware and software support for mains

In terms of its origins, and the core algorithms, I agree neural networks have many decades on them. However until the hardware and software support for mainstream massively parallel execution became available it was a niche tool. So the level of adoption, experimentation, deployment and research resources available are multiple orders of magnitude greater than 20 or 30 years ago. As a practitioner (for my entire career) the field still operates as a new field, with enormous areas for new experimentation and interesting new creative advances happening quickly. So we are still at the beginning.