[bo1024]

This argument has been made at every step in the evolution of AI.

For a long time, AI would "arrive" if it could beat a human in chess. Then it did and suddenly that became a gimmick, a trick of computation.

30 or 20 years ago, picture (if you can) how we would have viewed this technology: someone verbally telling a pocket-sized device to make an appointment and order groceries, asking it for facts or directions, etc. It would have seemed more like magic than feasible AI.

Today it's a "gimmick". The bar for AI always rises to beyond whatever we're currently comfortable with, and the bar for "strong AI" doubly so.

[ColanR]

It's probably because at every step, we always think that only a strong AI could solve the puzzle. So, when someone manages to make a not-strong-AI solve it, we say they worked around the implicit rules and created a 'hack'.

[bamboozled]

Paradoxically this argument is made every time someone refutes the idea that AI is making progress.