I don't read it that way. The author is saying that those special purpose machines will age out quickly when the task of advanced computing shifts (again). Yo

I don't read it that way. The author is saying that those special purpose machines will age out quickly when the task of advanced computing shifts (again). You seem to be making the assumption that "the huge neural networks they were designed for" are the only way to build AI. Things could shift under our feet again. The author (and I) have seen too many people say that only to be proved very wrong shortly thereafter. This means that it doesn't quite have the logical force that one might think to assert that this time we have the approach right (ignore the previous 7 times somebody else said just the same thing).