A clearer-eyed view of what has happened in the last two years is that a few companies have amassed enormous amounts of data (mostly taken non-consensually) and the capital to buy the computing resources to train enormous models which, in turn, can be used to output facsimiles of the kinds of interactions represented in the data.
I think a better understanding of how generative AI products are produced would help clear up some of this magical thinking that’s happening.
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000