I know the tech press has spent the last three years writing AI think pieces, asking whether it will destroy all jobs, or if it will trigger the robot apocalypse, but at this point I think the big question is: What will be left of the technology after the AI bubble pops?
Aside from not really being "AI", the post-collapse future of the tech is the real question. Because what AI boosters envisions requires more electricity than our society produces and because both that imagined AI future and what we have now costs many times more money than any AI company can ever hope to recoup in profits, it is clearly unsustainable and will collapse at some point. Maybe even really soon. So what large language model tech will still be around when the massive data centers start to fold and the firehose of money runs out? You can't put a genie back in the bottle. The technology exists. But what viable version of it will be left standing after all the non-viable stuff crashes and burns?