The price of Ethereum has far less to do with its long-term prospects than projects like Numerai.
Marc Andreessen made the famous statement that "Software is eating the world." The trustless digital scarcity enabled by blockchains has opened up a whole new part of the menu. Due to Ethereum, Machine Learning can now start dining in earnest. ML is going to gobble up everything that Oracles expose.
As an aside, people often conflate AI and Machine Learning; they are (extremely likely) related but different. IMO most people erroneously plot the singularity using ML advances. I think the jury is still out on their relationship, even though I suspect ML might be a possible path.
It sounds interesting, but it also sounds like bait for hedge fund managers. Obnoxiously CGI'ed introduction films, "other smart people say it's a good idea", a barebones whitepaper and a coin that does jack shit after an initial pump.
Set aside, I do also get the impression that there are a bunch of really interesting ideas being tested with Ethereum startups. My hope for the tech itself is not gone, especially with all the politics and bickering and non-progress over on the Bitcoin side of things.