There's a difference though now, isn't there? For instance, every modern smartphone today has AI inference accelerator in it. Not even the largest supercompute

There's a difference though now, isn't there? For instance, every modern smartphone today has AI inference accelerator in it. Not even the largest supercomputer in 1985 (or even 1995) had anything close to the AI capability of even a phone today. Some are even beaten out by watches. Also, there were no practical applications of AI in 1985. There was a lot of speculation, but nothing came out of it because the technology just wasn't there yet. Today computer vision, voice recognition, voice synthesis, driving assist mechanisms, face recognition, and many other fields have been advanced considerably through the use of AI technologies. We have yet to even scratch the surface of what is possible with our current level of development. Yes, we'll hit a wall soon enough, but we'll hit that wall having developed a range of useful products. The previous iterations were considered hype because nothing came out of them, but that can not be said for the current environment. It's like saying there is a hype-cycle in cataract treatment because the development of method plateaued between babylonia and the age of reason.