Vindicated and excited. Gradient descent is likely not enough. I love it when we get closer to something but are still missing the answer. I would be very happy if "add more parameters and compute" isn't enough to get us to AGI. It means you need talent to get there, and money alone will not suffice. Bad news for OpenAI and other big firms, good news for science and the curious.
I imagine physicists got very excited with things like the ultraviolet catastrophe, and the irreconcilable nature of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It's these mysteries that keep the world exciting.