The accuracy improvement boils down to representing more salient features in the model. The humans got a head start figuring out what to model, but the machine

The accuracy improvement boils down to representing more salient features in the model. The humans got a head start figuring out what to model, but the machine figures it out faster, so it caught up and surpassed them. Now it models more important stuff. The speed difference is a side effect of completely different implementations. One is a step-by-step simulator, the other is an input/output pattern matcher.