>or they can't figure out how to become profitable after all this.

The AI white pills will argue they already are vastly profitable - although they always, always leave out the small detail of externalities (AI R&D costs and data center-related capex). Of course if you remove the two largest costs, the thing will be profitable.

My intuition is that ultimately the US federal government sustains the whole thing financially, and profitability questions will be dismissed for as long as it continues to do so