Modern ML certainly has some cool applications, but none seem revolutionary. Can you list any that are?
When paired with a robotic medium, we'll be able to automate most pattern driven jobs like construction, welding, surgery, anything really that doesn't require human element to it and is more of a pattern matching behavior.
This is extremely revolutionary and will put a ton of people out of work. Any pattern-dependent job that does not require human interaction will be at risk, even coding (as we've seen by GPT-3's ability to generate code). Lawyers, sales people, cops, these jobs will be ok, but there will be less demand for humongous medical teams, software teams, etc. Bc all the entry-level work can be handled by AI, and just need some QA from a few engineers.
The state of the art of today’s DNN, I agree, is far away. But the peak of today’s architecture is yes, replacing construction, welding, and surgery. Those actually might happen quickly.
Three lawyers with the right set of tools (e.g. for discovery, writing legal briefs, etc.) can be more productive than twenty lawyers.
However, I do believe we are far and away from generalized intelligence.
The comparison to fire and electricity aside --- you're absolutely right, we can do very interesting things with machine learning & automatic differentiation these days!