I think the author is saying that a specific crowd, which happened to be very vocal and excited about web3 and NFTs, is also very vocal and excited about AI. In my personal experience they are right, a lot of the hustler types around me who were trying to get everyone to "invest" in digital land are now doomposting about AI.

It's not a very legible situation for people outside of the profession, and a lot of them believe it's just another grift that will blow up in a few years.