> There is a related “Theorem” about progress in AI: once some mental function is programmed, people soon cease to consider it as an essential ingredient of “real thinking”. The ineluctable core of intelligence is always in that next thing which hasn’t yet been programmed. This “Theorem” was first proposed to me by Larry Tesler, so I call it Tesler’s Theorem: “AI is whatever hasn’t been done yet.”
All that's invalidated each time is the idea that a general solution to that task requires a general solution to all tasks, or that a general solution to that task requires our special sauce. It's the idea that something able to to that task will also be able to do XYZ.
And yet people keep coming up with a new task that people point to saying, 'this is the one! there's no way something could solve this one without also being able to do XYZ!'