Modern AI depends on one thing above all else: The unimaginable compute power provided by today's GPUs. All theoretical foundations are trivial by comparison.

Modern AI depends on one thing above all else: The unimaginable compute power provided by today's GPUs. All theoretical foundations are trivial by comparison. The basic math can be understood by an interested high school student, but unless you are able to do billions of matrix multiplications per second, it doesn't mean anything. AI was going nowhere before Nvidia. Calling these people "the minds that launched AI" is like calling Archimedes the father of hot-air balloons, because he recognized the principle of buoyancy.