There's more nuance here than is usually given credit. I think it's more that once we understand the principles and the system works, we realize it never really

There's more nuance here than is usually given credit. I think it's more that once we understand the principles and the system works, we realize it never really needed AI. Here's how the story goes: Someone comes along and poses a problem. It seems like an automated solution will require building something like R2-D2. In other words solving it will need AI. Then someone else comes along and finds a way to solve it that looks nothing like R2-D2. Maybe they solve it with a massive dataset and a GLM. Turns out it never really needed AI. As a field, we're prone to thinking R2-D2 is necessary and sufficient for a task, when it keeps turning out it's a sufficient condition but not a necessary one for so many tasks.