Overall, I agree - the progress of AI has been breakneck over the past 12 months. But the difference in quality of Talk-to-Transformer and GPT-4 hasn't been that much in my experience. Both produce seemingly-correct text that crumbles under scrutiny and becomes useless for anything with a sub-80% acceptable failure rate.
It's great stuff, and I'd be lying if I said I liked cryptocurrency and don't use AI. The parallels are starkly visible though, and the "overpromise/underdeliver" cycle is already much further along than cryptocurrency ever got. The bubble will eventually pop because people are dissatisfied with the pace of progress, and then everyone will look for a scapegoat. We're already halfway there, judging by the daily deluge of "Ask HN: Why Does It Feel Like OpenAI Nerfed ChatGPT?" posts.