Tech people haven't noticed AI grow over time because it continues being slow. They've noticed continued creative use of Markov chains, though.

Every time it happens the computer is super duper smart and magical and stuff. But we've done this so many times now. Processor speeds increase > math from 1903 can be done faster > company incorporates it into everyday stuff and gets rich > people slowly realise it's not actually magic.

The first chain was literally a language model ffs and they barely had electricity.