It's the culmination of both the techbro dream of never needing icky humans for anything ever again AND the marxist dream of the free shit fairy. And I'm guessing there's something behind the scenes that's leading basically the entire world -- All of the tech companies, every government, etc -- towards chasing this particular dragon like mad. Yes, it's a bubble. Yes, there's infinite money. Yes, they're probably desperate to not let it pop and end up destroying every economy and government on Earth overnight.
But that doesn't explain it. China, for example, would be better served stepping back and letting the West crash and burn over this and they'd be able to pick up the pieces. They're not. Makes me think there's something there, something they can all see behind the scenes that we don't, that making them all desperate to be the first ones across the finish line, come hell or high water.
I've heard it say that tech we see is at least 10 years out of date compared to the really good stuff we don't hear about, either in labs, or being retained by the government, or what have you. That used to be an impressive number. 10 years in AI tech is something entirely different.