Progress in AI is one way. It doesn’t go backwards in the long term. Not necessarily. AI has gone through a winter before. Elon Musk has made this point, that

Progress in AI is one way. It doesn’t go backwards in the long term. Not necessarily. AI has gone through a winter before. Elon Musk has made this point, that progress isn't a monotonic ratchet. Progress in rocketry went backwards for years. Progress in top speed of commercial flight went backwards. Keeping current tech levels requires constant effort. In the software industry, many argue that UI quality went backwards with the shift to web apps for an example of cases where progress isn't obviously one way.