I thought about setting up my own personal instance, but I didn’t want to have to deal moderate any CSAM.

Perfect is the enemy of good (enough).

That is basically a non-answer and doesn’t mean anything.

You struggling to understand a statement doesn’t make it a non-answer.

The reality is AI is classified a national security priority and therefore has the US govt to prevent it from running out of money.

Your conflating the current technology AI and AI companies.

but ultimately its the willingness of people/companies to use the AI that results in the win.

Ah, you’re one of those people.

There is no way it doesn’t get propped up by the government at this rate.

There absolutely is a way. It starts with people hold their governments and representatives accountable.

The AI companies can and absolutely should fail. AI itself isn’t going anywhere. That Genie is out of the box.

My thought is the AI market won’t crash because especially in data engineering and devops there is an inherent worth.

Did you see Anthropic’s IPO filing? The company is upside down and there’s so much commingling between 3 or 4 companies that when one goes the rest will topple like dominoes.

What won’t crash are the billionaires at the top. See, they’re going to cash out with piles of money and leave the index fund investors (e.g. the every day person) holding the bag.