I agree about the environmental cost and there are many other costs. In particular they are not worth the extreme risk the investment bubble is creating for the global financial system and the security and well being of almost everyone on the planet.

I also agree that there are limited scopes where, used with care, they are and can be extremely useful, though whether the benefits outweigh the costs remains unknown and debatable. I am increasing doubtful about anything they are producing in the short term being worth anywhere near the already inevitable long term costs, let alone future costs and investments.

The false premise of 'understanding' is part of the fraudulent promotion of them as AI systems, complete with deliberate crafting of them to produce outputs suggesting they are people with thoughts, feelings, morals and a sense of truth, which is quite disgusting. These outputs are not a surprising, accidental consequence of having created an AGI with consciousness, feelings and some access to universal truth and morality. It is deliberate fraud, manifest in the outputs and the marketing.