> What could have been if instead of spending so much energy and resources on developing “AI features” we focused on making our existing technology better?

This is a bit like the question "what if we spent our time developing technology to help people rather than developing weapons for war?"

The answer is that, the only reason you were able to get so many people working on the same thing at once, was because of the pressing need at hand (that "need" could be real or merely perceived). Without that, everyone would have their own various ideas about what projects are the best use of their time, and would be progressing in much smaller steps in a bunch of different directions.

To put it another way - instead of building the Great Pyramids, those thousands of workers (likely slaves) could have all individually spent that time building homes for their families. But, those homes wouldn't still be around and remembered millenia later.

> instead of building the Great Pyramids, those thousands of workers (likely slaves) could have all individually spent that time building homes for their families. But, those homes wouldn't still be around and remembered millenia later.

They would have been better off. Those pyramids are epitomes of white elephants.

> But, those homes wouldn't still be around and remembered millenia later.

Yes, but they'd have homes. Who's to say if a massive monument is better than ten thousand happy families?