What they said 10 years ago was correct. It did hit society like a sledge hammer. Machine learning basically took over the AI space and penetrated the consumer space with applications that were all but impossible in the previous decade. There's AI chips in smart phones now.

What you're seeing here with LLMs is sledge hammer number 2.

It's understandable how most people don't notice the sledge hammer. The decade prior to 2010 there was another sledge hammer had no smart phones. We were hit with a smart phone hammer AND an AI sledge hammer and the integration was so seamless we didn't even notice.

Much of the same will happen with LLMs. In 5 years it's so normal, nobody cares and likely we will forget what life was like before LLMs.