Keep in mind that they are a supervised technique so they can't be compared to what google is doing.
80s style neural networks are flexible and powerful learners. Theoretically they can learn any function, and in practice they often come up with decent solutions. They aren't perfect - there is no guarantee they will find the best solution ('local minima'), and they operate as a black-box, meaning we can't properly interpret them.
I've heard the saying "80s style neural networks are usually the second best solution", which is oversimplified but close to correct.
80s style neural networks are flexible and powerful learners. Theoretically they can learn any function, and in practice they often come up with decent solutions. They aren't perfect - there is no guarantee they will find the best solution ('local minima'), and they operate as a black-box, meaning we can't properly interpret them.
I've heard the saying "80s style neural networks are usually the second best solution", which is oversimplified but close to correct.