"GAI" itself is a very nebulous term. Give me a definition without resorting to "acts like a human". Because if that's the touchstone, then one can argue GAI was achieved with Eliza in the 1960s.
All we have now are faster, better, more powerful Elizas and as long as deep learning is the only tool we have, that's all we'll keep getting
The bigger question, of course, whether the following statement is true:
"All we ARE now are faster, better, more powerful Elizas"
Is that all there is, but organic instead of digitally modeled? Organic brings in a lot of uncertainty and chaos. That, too, can be digitally modeled. Are we ghosts in our own organic machines, or are we simply those machines, hallucinating our own importance?
All we have now are faster, better, more powerful Elizas and as long as deep learning is the only tool we have, that's all we'll keep getting