This article is excellent, and raises a point that's been lingering in the back of my head--what happens if the promises don't materialize? What happens when the market gets tired of stories about AI chatbots telling landlords to break the law, or suburban moms complaining about their face being plastered onto a topless model, or any of the other myriad stories of AI making glaring mistakes that would get any human immediately fired?

We've poured hundreds of billions of dollars into this, and what has it gotten us? What is the upside that makes up for all the lawsuits, lost jobs, disinformation, carbon footprint, and deluge of valueless slop flooding our search results? So far as I can tell, its primary use seems to be in creating things that someone is too lazy to do properly themself like cover letters or memes, and inserting Godzilla into increasingly ridiculous situations. There's certainly something there, perhaps, but is it worth using enough energy to power a small country?