Does AI Just Suck?

I’ve written a bunch about how likely it is that this AI revolution is going to go up in smoke, such as here or here. In these pieces I’ve tended to focus on the broader philosophical questions and the terrible record of humanity’s efforts to predict the future. Typically I’ve left the actual generative powers of these existing systems alone. But what if this software just sucks? What if we’re all so desperate to move to the next era of human history that we talked ourselves into the idea that not-very-impressive predictive text and image compilers are The Future?