> Now that AI is actually making advancements, very little of that work seems to have had much effect. Theres the famous Vonnegut qoute about the combined effort of all preeminent artists protesting the Vietnam war having the effect of a pie dropped from a step-ladder.

One of the interesting things about any topic becoming the 'Current Thing' is that you get to see people making utterly irreconcilable, completely contradictory interpretations of the same public evidence while still somehow reaching the same conclusion.

For example, the day before you commented describing the effect as equal to a pie being dropped on the ground (ie. nil) and that is why they are bad, Palladium published a long (~5.8k words) piece arguing that they had a ton of effect... just in the opposite of the intended direction, and that is why they are bad: https://www.palladiummag.com/2025/01/31/the-failed-strategy-...

Obviously, you can't both be right. (You can both be wrong, though.)