Of course AI is a failure of imagination. But so were symbols, which cannot reference, they can only represent, if at all.
The real function of AI appears to be the transition away from symbols, metaphors, folk science cause and effect ideation.
We're only barely sensing this, but if you listen to Gary Marcus, Rich Sutton and those willing to see the larger scales, they are bellwethers that are actually sinking their own approaches as well as LLMs.
In effect, labor is about to reap the benefits of the AI debacle. I see this in the AI at the major teaching hospital my sister is a department head of. In lead developers in gaming, in media. AI does not function well, it's essentially wax fruit, it's not even mimicry. That's going to lead to an analog rebirth.
https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/lessons-of-babel/articles/...
The word is an arbitrary form, as myth is, (as symbols, money, news, states/politics) both are ultimately evolutionarily suspect in terms of animal signals, and we haven't found a specific workaround to that arbitrariness. That's extinction. The world is only specific, as is survival.
I suggest the only function of arbitrary signals is to refute themselves into replacement. The good thing about the AI debacle is that it's about speeding that up.
I read in a book titled The Technology Trap about how in the past, rulers withheld technological advancements and gave strategic deference to the people whose labor would be most affected by them, so as it not put their own necks at risk.
That doesn’t seem to be a concern today.