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Hasura is more than just GraphQL. It maps GraphQL queries to single SQL statements. So you can think of it more as an ORM, but rather than mapping objects to the database it maps GraphQL statements.

The advantage of this over a traditional ORM is that by having the entire query up front it can be smarter about how it does the translation.

Regarding REST, this is very very different. With REST, you map a single "query," the REST endpoint, to an SQL statement (ideally one). But if you want some other query, you're out of luck. Either you make a new REST endpoint, or you manually call several endpoints and compose the data.

There are some dangers to the GraphQL to SQL approach, namely it's harder to guarantee performance when the client can execute arbitrary queries.

Now, GraphQL by itself, I agree it doesn't solve the hardest problems: getting the data for the query and doing it security. But something like Hasura does address those points and I do think it is an advancement over previous technologies.