That's a poor argument that doesn't change the fact that any feature requires maintenance time and effort which for some users could be better invested in features they actually use, in improving overall stability, reliability, performance, etc. The more such unused features a product has, the less relevant it is for those users.

The question is, was adding "AI" to this product requested by most users, or was it done to tick off a marketing checkbox and capitalize on the hype?

What stability, reliability, and performance problems are you hitting with Atuin?

I posted a longer comment upthread, but I’ve been self-hosting and running an old version for over two years now, and haven’t had any recurring problems on those fronts. It’s pretty damn stable software and everything they’ve been doing lately has just been extra features and gloss.