"AI winter" was a political phenomenon that happened because the AI applications didn't hold water to the hype, and all of the gullible people that invested on them got burned out by the disparity.

We are very clearly on that same path again. What leads to the conclusion that another winter is coming. But even the fact that people are talking about it is evidence it's not here yet, and as always with political phenomena, there's no guarantee history will repeat.

Anyway, none of it means people will stop applying their knowledge or studying AI. The entire thing happens on funding and PR, and the world is not entirely controlled by those two.