What is the reason for the jump in the popularity of neural networks among the general public?

Question

Neural networks

I'm not very educated in this regard, so I apologize if the question is stupid.
In the last 2-3 years, neural networks have been constantly heard in all kinds of near-IT news. Google Deep Dream, Neural Defense from Yandex, Prisma, etc. However, as far as I know, research in this area has been going on since the middle of the last century. Why has this area of ​​computer science gained such wide popularity among the masses only in recent years? Increasing the availability of technology? Or hype?

Answer 1

1. Increasing accessibility.
2. The transition of quantity into quality. Hype.
3. All kinds of frameworks, etc.
4. Every fool now has a GPU/CPU computer with processing power equal to the mainframe 15-20 years ago.

Answer 2

Today, a neural network is a "prompter" for making decisions by a person within a strictly limited framework.
It can be compared with scales in the market: when they make it possible to understand the cost of a given product by its weight, and the price for one unit of weight is set by the seller.
Now there is a search mode for a universal neural network, when it will not need to be designed in advance and the neurons themselves are rigidly connected by connections.
Whoever finds it first will receive a universal "mind" that will be able to answer any questions of its creator, aggregating information from various sources.
Therefore, now the race in this direction has significantly intensified, when the real results of competitors have become visible, which make it possible to increase profits on the basis of NS without significant labor costs and investments in their business.