I’ve never understood the appeal of the “smartified” appliances. My TV is more annoying than it used to be because it has smart features, it was actually more useful when it was dumb and simply played broadcast television or whatever was fed to it varian HDMI port, I don’t need smart light switches asI can turn my own lights on it’s not that difficult, I don’t need a smart fridge either, not unless it’s going to stock itself.
I can’t think of a single piece of equipment that I use on a regular basis that would benefit from having internet connectivity added to it. I guess it would be nice if my wall clock updated when the hours changed due to daylight savings, but nothing other than that.
AI has been in development for a long time, I remember learning about neural networks when I was at school in the 90s, they weren’t very sophisticated by all accounts but the research was there. What’s happened lately is that scientists have been replaced by tech bros and all the research is now happening out in public, Andy’s on sale, rather than in the labs where it can be regulated by people who are not purely profit motivated.
The internet didn’t vanish when the dot com bubble burst, all that happened was that businesses were more accurately assessed as to their market value. If anything, the internet was improved by the dot com bubble burst, does increase the number of actually practical ideas.
I suspect AI will be better once the AI bubble bursts, and the research goes back into labs and starts being done by ethical scientists again.