It's not only that computers are so much faster, but also that they can be made much smaller. Something like a self driving car not only uses a sophisticated AI that requires a huge amount of up front data processing, but also a large number of sensors. Each of which may contain a number of microprocessors.

As to sex bots, well, you already know http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=149694

60% what Ragamuffin said, and 40% us lowering our standards for what qualifies as "intelligence."

@ Scrotum. Its simply technological progress. Eg. looks how the engineering and technology of cars progressed from the 19th century to today. Engineers iteratively developed better and better design techniques and tools.
In the case of AI a similar process of developing better tools and techniques has been in progress and really accelerating since computers became common. A modern AI researcher or developer has a huge set of tools and techniques at his disposal thanks to this process. Its just that they are all arcane and abstract and invisible to the general public, so its not apparent that any of this exists until you see a cool video of a robot dog.

AI systems have already quietly taken over various areas in industry. Eg. production line and container shipping management. The kinda stuff people dont care, or know much about about; where their poop goes after the toilet, where their clothes and cars come from etc.

ps. Forgot.. The reason all these tools are so arcane and abstract and invisible, is because they're software and not hardware. No-one who is not actually a programmer ever usually gives a shit about code.