Why is AI so cringe?

AI isn't cringe; people using AI bad is cringe.

I don't think they are comparable on the cring-o-meter

I do expect blockchain to become a thing again, but boring and without the coin over the moon. Reason being that it has some interesting things to say about managing trust in an adversarial world, and AI is going to make trust a lot harder. It will be interesting to see where and how they interleave in the coming years

AI is already providing value to people and they are more than happy to pay a monthly or per call fee. This is very different from blockchain that has yet to find a sustainable business model

We're used to the forms of hype led, "tech miracle" investor stripper scams now. The resemblance of this cycle to previous cycles is strong; giving a feeling of "surely people won't bit the same bait again?"

Under all the hype, there are small but real advances. The "VR" wave led to some better sensors, the "self driving cars" wave led to cheaper LIDAR modules, and a lot of experience with approaches that fail.

You'd have never have sold those as the end products for the price that was paid for them, however. The "LLM" wave of AI is as much a product of Nvidia's need for a market as it is any actual advance or novelty in that field. Ask: where's the patents on LLMs?

Overhyped. Solution looking for a problem.

There are applications for AI/ML, but they're "boring" so marketing gets cranked up to make it sound like AI can do all the things.

Lots of downvotes on answers, without the downvoters bothering to explain their reasoning. Time was, HNers were interested in rational exchanges of views.