No, the hype cycle started around 2019, slowly at first. The technology this is built with is more like 20 years old, so no, we are not 2.5 years at most really.

If you can quote anyone well-known saying we'd be replacing programmers in 6 months back in 2019, I'd be interested to read it.

Neural networks go back a lot further than 20 years ago. It was considered a research dead end for a long time though.

we're 2.5 years into the current hype trend, no way was this mainstream until at least 2022

GPT3 dropped in 2020. That's when it hit mainstream

GPT3 wasn't that impressive. GPT 3.5 is when it became "oh wow, this could really change things," and that was 2022.

It certainly made a heavy impression on this tiny new outlet called NYT in 2020 : https://archive.is/QtpMT

GPT-3 shook the research world but it was by no means mainstream until the ChatGPT release in Nov 2022.

I feel like no one was really talking about this stuff until midjourney and dalle, but I can agree to disagree