> has there been a significant breakthrough that explains this sudden surge in the interest in AI?
Yes. Some tasks like language translation, face recognition etc. have reached human level performance. Why has this happened? Large data and increase in computing power (Thanks gamers and GPUs!).
Is this translation service available online? I tried different services recently while travelling, none of them were better than basic knowledge of the language and a dictionary. Full sentences sometimes work well but anything else is problematic (e.g. restaurant menus).
deepl.com is pretty good. This translation of your question into German is flawless:
"Ist dieser Übersetzungsservice online verfügbar? Ich habe in letzter Zeit auf Reisen verschiedene Dienste ausprobiert, keiner von ihnen war besser als Grundkenntnisse der Sprache und ein Wörterbuch. Ganze Sätze funktionieren manchmal gut, aber alles andere ist problematisch (z.B. Restaurantmenüs)."
Yes. Some tasks like language translation, face recognition etc. have reached human level performance. Why has this happened? Large data and increase in computing power (Thanks gamers and GPUs!).