Is it the key to AI? It probably depends on the squishy definition of AI and what different people want from it. If your definition includes self awareness and sentience I’m not sure it is the key (I’m also not entirely convinced it isn’t, either), but it’s not clear either way in my opinion.

The one thing that is clear is if it can become more cost effective it’s world changing. Even at its subsidized standards now it’s world changing. And it’s reasonably classified as AI IMO, but it’s not self aware.

I think a lot of your general traditional researchers are fundamentally looking to understand ourselves through machines as proxies in a sense. Something self aware that senses, learns, adapts, so on. The current path isn’t there or necessarily clearly the key to achieving that. That may be the disconnect. I think LLMs may give us some hints at that but not the full picture.

Still incredibly powerful for things we once considered nearly impossible.