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PLATO had graphical terminals with touch screens and software implementing forums, message boards, online testing, e-mail, chat rooms, picture languages, instant messaging, remote screen sharing, and multiplayer games. They weren't just used by programmers by a long shot.

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Ok, fine. PLATO was a super cool more generalist machine that happens to not be a personal computer. My use of personal computers was just an example that I thought would get a point across about the evolution of technology. The fact that PLATO existed and was very different than what came before it (as per all the cool stuff you listed) if anything strengthens the argument I was making. Generalist machines were a big step up from what came before, orders of magnitude better. A super-AI will also be unpredictably orders of magnitude better than what we've done so far.

But my point is that the generalist computers weren't a sudden or unpredictable step, they were the result of slow and progressive improvement. If generalist computers are any example to go by, the fact that we don't have anything close to a primitive general AI indicates we're far, far away from developing anything close to a "super-AI".

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