You sir, are spot on.
Yes, been dealing with this stuff for decades, remember in the 90s my first exposure to these ideas and concepts. The limiting factors back them of course were the data set sizes and computational limitations.
These aren’t really new ideas or even concepts, its just that we finally got large enough datasets, and enough distributed computing power to be able to leverage them effectively at scale.
However, the fundamental driving algorithms/math behind them is not new at all.
It is impressive, and we are reaching the level where a lay human could believe it is actually conversing with a person if only engaging with it casually. Which some might argue we have “passed” the Turing test. However, anyone who truly wished to dig, would realize quickly that they are not dealing with a human.
Probably the real leap in the current “AI” stuff is that it changes the interaction model. We can now, interact with the systems with casual speech and it works rather well.
However, calling it “AI” is really a marketing thing more than anything.