“Today is the worst AI will ever be.” I’m gonna steal this one. I can’t say the same about web development, for example, or the US political landscape, or climate change, or mental health, etc.
AI doesn't just make progress, during an AI winter the AI gets worse for a while. Like deep blue was the best in the world, then they scrapped that project and it took a long while until anyone made a better chess engine. The same can easily happen for LLMs etc, if it turns out they are too expensive to run without VC money we will see them quickly regress once the next winter hits.