Exactly right. Parent poster is conflating the investment in "AI" since 2022 (almost exclusively meant to mean LLMs, like ChatGPT) and specialized "AI" systems (almost exclusively "machine learning" systems).

A LLM is just about useless for any sort of surveillance or data analysis tasks. The bigger fear with LLM proliferation is as a propaganda machine, astrotufing the whole Internet with mass LLM-generated bullshit.

You don't need GPUs to do traffic analysis you just need more Five Eyes, TIA, room 641A stuff.

Oh, entirely. But that also theoretically benefits from AI: https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S1546221824004636

Hence things like: https://mullvad.net/en/vpn/daita

But further? I'd encourage you to explore what Gospel and Lavender are.