I think many non technical people have an incorrect understanding of "AI", where they conflate a single example of what neural networks can do, namely chat bots, with an entire field.
Even if chat bots have no significant advances in the foreseeable future, "AI" as in large neural networks have already proven themselves to be extremely useful and able to accomplish a lot of things which are almost impossible to do without them.
Even if chat bots have no significant advances in the foreseeable future, "AI" as in large neural networks have already proven themselves to be extremely useful and able to accomplish a lot of things which are almost impossible to do without them.