WA seems like a generalization of that. Instead of seeing it as a google-killing AI inference engine, you're saying to think of it as a way to do effortlessly what you could do already... if you went to the trouble to gather the data, put it into mathematica or similar analysis tool.
This is a very credible claim, and I can imagine it quickly finding unforeseen uses, as you say - provided it really is reasonably effortless (as in your four criteria).
WA seems like a generalization of that. Instead of seeing it as a google-killing AI inference engine, you're saying to think of it as a way to do effortlessly what you could do already... if you went to the trouble to gather the data, put it into mathematica or similar analysis tool.
This is a very credible claim, and I can imagine it quickly finding unforeseen uses, as you say - provided it really is reasonably effortless (as in your four criteria).