AI has been in development for a long time, I remember learning about neural networks when I was at school in the 90s, they weren’t very sophisticated by all accounts but the research was there. What’s happened lately is that scientists have been replaced by tech bros and all the research is now happening out in public, and it is on sale, rather than in the labs where it can be regulated by people who are not purely profit motivated.

The internet didn’t vanish when the dot com bubble burst, all that happened was that businesses were more accurately assessed as to their market value. If anything, the internet was improved by the dot com bubble burst, does increase the number of actually practical ideas.

I suspect AI will be better once the AI bubble bursts, and the research goes back into labs and starts being done by ethical scientists again.