There are a few forces at play and there is a much bigger overarching problem.

Even before AI, it felt like the value of intelligence and knowledge had been dropping over time. This makes sense as the internet has democratized access to information and promoted intellectual self-improvement. The supply of intelligence increased dramatically but demand for it struggled to keep up (in spite of the tech boom). Now demand for intelligence has plateaued; This is one way to look at current tech layoffs.

It got to a point that intelligence is almost worthless now. 'Earning' money is mostly about social connections, not intelligence. So all these use cases which people are using AI for are pointless in terms of earning money in the current system. The current system rewards money-acquisition, it does not reward value-creation. You don't need intelligence to acquire money in this system; you need social connections. AI does not give you social connections; if anything, it takes away social connections. The people using AI to build themselves an amazing second internet will have nobody to share it with; no users, no investment.

The oversupply of intelligence means that it cannot find any serious avenues to earn a financial return, so instead it turns to political manipulations because system reform (or manipulation) is the shortest path to earning monetary returns... Though often this manipulation only further decouples value creation from money-acquisition.