"The internet could bear out, but it seems a lot of hype to me" --Many, many people in 1997.

Honestly I don't know how you formed this particular opinion (if it's even your own and not a false consensus of other peoples thoughts). I cannot see any future without LLMs unless replaced by something smarter, cheaper, and faster. That's because it's already bearing out. I can talk to a computer and the computer can solve problems based on words alone. I'm old enough this is pure science fiction. If I could send one of these machines back to that past for people to interact with, there are those that would scream and pass out in terror. They would absolutely tell you that we created the monster we should never create.

If you're trying to compare symbolic AI of the past to what we have now, you're not even on the same field, you're playing a completely different game.