It is, sadly, all very poorly focused on the things that won’t benefit society as a whole, but once again, the ruling class. I really wish AI had not been developed with the intent to make white collar jobs obsolete. If only these same brilliant minds had been focused on robotics and processes that humans don’t want to participate in.
They are, look at modem factory or mine they're full of robotics, now injuries are incredibly low and many of the most dangerous jobs are as safe as a well run office
We're in a big transition as new technologies are developed, it's going to take time but there are are some huge things coming soon - llms and cv are enabling fsctory toolarms to leave the factory so expect cooking arms, repair arms, construction arms, micro factories bringing manufacturing back to local markets... sure it sucks we don't have it now but don't hate the early stages of it just because it's not finished yet.
What does creating pictures of astronaut kittens or videos of perpetual zooming have to do with any of that, let alone creating poems about robots and ninjas?
Because those are great ways of exploring and working with things like image analysis and item identification - they seem like the only thing that exists from a consumer point of view but the reality is they're off shoots of developing more significant tools and mathematical understanding.
Think of it like Newton, he invented a desktop toy and a window decoration for hippys- his life in terms of products to market is laughablely insignificant, totally reduculous. However by laying the groundwork of modern science in optics and physics he demonstrated methods that could be used to totally revolutionize pretty much every part of life.
Natural language computing is hugely significant, it removes so many class and economic barriers while also benefitting us in the developed world almost as much. We're going to start seeing ai integrated into sites like Amazon soon alowing you to describe the product you want and actually get search results that match, sounds insignificant but it's a hugely difficult problem and could have a big effect on things. 'Answering a A vase suitable for this flower' or 'a power adaptor to work with this device' is a couple of orders more complex than creating a poem about robot ninja.