Power consumption per unit of work keeps going down, too. Our pocket supercomputers are astoundingly efficient compared to what it used to take to get the same work done at relatable points in the past. We'll get there.

Before we get there, we'll have network connectivity to our desktop AI boxes at home. That's pretty good, too.

And if this clown-bot[1] boom is a bubble (as I believe it is), then it's just a matter of time before it pops. The blast radius is unknown, but at one end it seems likely to result in something between potentially-idle fabs that have already been mostly paid for. Idle factories are bad and it makes sense to avoid that even if it is expensive, so this means cheap hardware.

At the other end, it means failed companies with fabs that are sold for pennies on the dollar alongside a resolute unwillingness amongst the investors (who just had their asses handed to them) to start on Boom 2.0. This latter scenario would mean golden age of cheap hardware.

I think we'll be fine.

[1]: Yeah, clown is on purpose. It fits as a replacement in any technical parlance where "cloud" would be used. :)