> Current environment feels like the self-driving car hype cycle.

Is that really hype? I mean there companies or person(s) hyping it up, but there is also Waymo and Pingshan (Baidu) for example actually rolling it out. It's a lot less hype than AI coding.

> Anecdotally, AI agents feel stuck somewhere circa ~2021.

That's only part of the problem. It's also stuck or dead set on certain frameworks / libraries where it has training data.

> I keep thinking about The Tortoise and The Hare.

This implies that AI is currently "smart". The hare is "smarter" and just takes breaks i.e. it can actually get the job done. With the current "AI" there are still quirks where it can get stuck.