> We want it to be true, so we squint and connect dots and it's true.
That's exactly the issue. You summarized it once and for all and we can all go home and stop discussing it now and forever (until we get a general AI that is).
1. Normal people want to have intelligent machines. They watch movies and series and imagine one day a robot will cook for them so they actively look for intelligence, as you said. They buy Roombas and imagine they are going to clean 100% of their rooms (seen it, heard it, watched them rage when it didn't happen). They buy Alexa-enabled devices and imagine themselves like some aristocrats barking orders at an intelligent home (lol). But yeah, that's what the normal people do. It's quite puzzling to me.
2. People who work in the area are obviously biased and I have argued with some of them here on HN but I view it as a doomed affair. They insist there's a lot of innovation going on and that improvements are being done all the time yet we still have embarrassing failures as Michele Obama classified as a male and various politicians classified as known criminals or black people in general classified as gorillas. Like OK, where are your precious improvements and why are they NEVER finding their way into the news?
"It's hard to make someone understand something if their salary depends on them not understanding it", that's how I view the folks working in the DL / ML area. Sorry if that's offensive but just looking from the sidelines, it seems that what I say is true.