Look at, for example, Moravec. His extrapolation assumes that supercomputer will not be made available for AI work until AI work has already been proven successful (correct) and that AI will have to wait for hardware to become so powerful that even a grad student can afford it with $1k (also correct, see AlexNet), and extrapolating from ~1998, estimates:
At the present rate, computers suitable for humanlike robots will appear in the 2020s.
In the Gwern quote, what does “Even the dates are more or less correct!” refer to? Which dates were predicted for what?
Look at, for example, Moravec. His extrapolation assumes that supercomputer will not be made available for AI work until AI work has already been proven successful (correct) and that AI will have to wait for hardware to become so powerful that even a grad student can afford it with $1k (also correct, see AlexNet), and extrapolating from ~1998, estimates:
Guess what year today is.