This is the weirdest technology market that I’ve seen. Researchers are getting rewarded with VC money to try what remains a science experiment. That used to be a bad word and now that gets rewarded with billions of dollars in valuation.
That's not all that new. Commercial fusion power startups are an example. I think the first one was General Fusion, founded in 2002. Today, there are around 50 of them. Every single one of those "remains a science experiment", and probably has much lower chance of success than some of the AI science experiments.
Of course, fusion startups have apparently "only" received about $10 bn in funding to date, so pale in comparison to the overall AI market. But if you just look at the AI "science experiments", it's possible the amounts would be comparable.