>>if you'd have asked anyone (anyone!), in any AI related field in 1980, where AI would be in thirty years what would they have said?

Uhm, Hans Moravec isn't exactly "anyone". :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

Edit: To be clear, Moravec shows that you misrepresent the AI field of that time. But sure, he wasn't the mainstream.