Outstanding sleuthing, @Yardanico! (The ideas seem to have been definitely floating around from the 1960s with Herb Simon and systems complexity theory and later in the 80s with Fred Brooks and Richard Gabriel and others and of course many of us like physics metaphors because Physics is "imitation catnip" for various reasons.)
(Yeah. Maybe ChatBots aren't good for quote research. Further interaction revealed it was mostly making it all up and I was going to update but you beat me too it, you spritely fellow!)
