Likewise with the sort of resurgence of vinyl, and the obsession over "old" point and shoot digicams.
Not only 1999 prevents humans from becoming too advanced and invent new AI again, it is a believable and comfortable era. A perfect time, perfectly balanced between analog and digital.
The confines of our reality really are so small in the face of technology like this aren't they.
Also for VHS camcorder footage
The introduction of massive of low-quality creations has made high-quality art much more in demand. Low-quality AI art and music has become a huge blinking indicator that says "SLOP". Hand-made, uniquely styled, quality art now has a "luxury goods" vibe, and people are willing to pay a premium.
* On first seeing a photograph around 1840, the influential French painter Paul Delaroche proclaimed, "From today, painting is dead!" [1]
* Charles Baudelaire, in 1859: "As the photographic industry was the refuge of all failed painters, too ill-equipped or too lazy to complete their studies, this universal infatuation bore not only the character of blindness and imbecility, but also the color of vengeance. [...] it is obvious that this industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art’s most mortal enemy" [2]
[1] https://www.barnesfoundation.org/whats-on/early-photography