[randcraw]

By that token, IBM's wins at chess and Jeopardy also deserve to be seen as "coming of age" events. And while the wins certainly showcased IBM's engineering prowess, I'm unconvinced Deep Blue or Watson moved the AI needle in a meaningful way. If they had, others would have followed in their technical footsteps. But AFAIK, no one has. I believe this lack of high tech repercussion will be true of AlphaGo too. Novel AI for game play just doesn't transfer outside the game.

[dwaltrip]

You don't think Deep Blue was inspirational to folks who were perhaps deciding if they wanted to pursue AI research?

The same holds for AlphaGo and Watson. Also, my understanding is that they are more technically interesting than Deep Blue. Given how recent these projects are, their legacy is only beginning to unfold.

I agree with you that applying this tech to domains other than games is no easy challenge. But I would be very surprised, in the long run, if events like this are not documented as key steps along the way at some point in the future.