A highly prominent expert opinion but the general consensus was that it would take a long time. Ask anyone who went to AI class back then.
Here is another expert
"In May of 2014, Wired published a feature titled, “The Mystery of Go, the Ancient Game That Computers Still Can’t Win,” where computer scientist Rémi Coulom estimated we were a decade away from having a computer beat a professional Go player. (To his credit, he also said he didn’t like making predictions.)"
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/
You also find highly prominent expert opinions that AI is going to be dangerous and experts who don't believe it. Most people don't believe it, most people believe robots wont take jobs either.
And no I don't need to provide you with anything since you have only problem my point that most people didn't believe it would happen which is why you didn't link to anything saying that most believed it would happen.