In my opinion if you learned something from it, it was useful. Bonus points if others learn from it as well, but if not then as long as you did then it doesn’t matter. AI age or not.

I’ve always found hobby OS projects like this interesting, and I hope there’s never a shortage of them in the future

That's a good way to look at it, and on reflection I feel the same way.

It's certainly useful _to me_ and has helped me really nail down concepts I thought I already understood, but it turns out I didn't.

I just hope that, in an age where it feels like code, and maybe even deep technical knowledge have diminishing value, projects like this don't become completely anachronistic.