Building new massive models might not be cost efficient for a while, but the more valuable thing is the infrastructure change that is more permanent. The dot coms died but the cross country fiber that was laid down persisted and the internet was baked in. The good thing about new tech bubbles is the infrastructure that gets pulled forward to support it.

Same with data centers and current SOTA models. If the music stops, we have tilled some fertile ground that will be utilized by those that come after. Inference costs will fall through the floor if those data centers aren't being fully utilized, same with RAM prices.

Think of what came after the dot com crash: Facebook and YouTube. Neither could exist until internet usage and bandwidth reached a tipping point that came after all the hype.