Products no, I don't think that will happen. The market will be so small and manufacturers won't service that market due to cost. For services, maybe. I can see a bank or an ISP advertise with "No AI customer service, only real people" and especially elderly paying extra for that service.

One thing that I do wonder about is the value in adding AI and "Smartness", what if people don't use it? I know practically no one who uses their smart TV as anything but a monitor (and speakers). Everyone adds an AppleTV or a ChromeCast. My in-laws used Netflix on their Sony TV for a bit, but it was slow and two years ago Netflix stopped being supported on their TV and I gave them an old ChromeCast. Backed in AI could easily end up in the same situation. It's omni-present, but rarely used. That's a problem with the current logic behind innovation where little market research is done and companies are afraid to remove functionality as it may make them look less competitive (in the eyes of shareholders).

Someone point out that apparently Romanian online electronics retailers have a pretty nice selection of dumb TVs, at least they did a few years ago.

The OEMs don't care Netflix is no longer supported - they're OCR'ing, hashing, and selling what you're watching either way. They only need you to care enough to hook it up to the internet in the first place so they can sell what their users are watching

I'm pretty sure I've already seen telcos use "Our support is 100% human" or something to that effect as a marketing point

Yeah, exactly. Undiscerning shoppers hear "Smart" TV and either assume it's better or buy whatever's put in front of them most loudly without even wondering if it's better or not. Those same people will ensure that AI products are successful and alternatives will similarly disappear.

People buy the cheapest option.

Two identical TVs the same size and make, one “smart”, one not. The smart is $10 cheaper, people go for that.

This. And the smart one is cheaper because it's a collection device for data on you that they can sell.

I wouldn't mind these "smart" TVs so much if they didn't suck so much for regular use. Why does it take 30+ seconds for me to get my television turned on when I just want to use a gaming console plugged into one of the inputs??