Innovation goes in steps and iterations ;) When mp3 came out, I could just barely play a song encoded from 44.1kHz/16 bit stereo on my PC, taking almost 100% CPU. Today they can be played on a cheap microcontroller.
I like that they share their work, it can lead to something some day.
MP3's were playable on cheap boom box stereos, and portable CD players, 20+ years ago. Such consumer devices capable of decoding MP3's appeared within less than half a decade of MP3 itself, by my recollection.
I think you are correct on that one. How long will it take to run this neural net on cheap consumer devices? It might take more than 5 years. But if all the new AI stuff is not a hype, but continues to be used, we will probably see hardware for running it on cheap circuits in a not to distant future. Maybe using a GPU+RAM like structure. Maybe the analog circuits with analog flash will win? The future will show us :)
Maybe add this URL to the calendar on today's date in 5 years an go back and reply with the answer :-D
I like that they share their work, it can lead to something some day.