We'd been managing around human capabilities since around 2004 in certain tasks.
There were actual industrial applications in 1994.
You'd have to go back to the 1950s to find the type of research in neural networks that was of no practical application to anyone but NN researchers.
Yes. "Quantum computers will revolutionize computing by year 2100" is a claim I can take seriously. "Quantum computers will revolutionize computing real soon now" is a claim I am not taking seriously.
And yes, the 1950s AI researchers also boasted that it would take only months, what ended up taking many decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_workshop
How much money should we putting into something with a time horizon longer than the working careers of everyone here?
We'd been managing around human capabilities since around 2004 in certain tasks.
There were actual industrial applications in 1994.
You'd have to go back to the 1950s to find the type of research in neural networks that was of no practical application to anyone but NN researchers.