Assessing the Impact of AI

Dystopian Doom, or the Shift to a New Golden Age?

Over the last couple of decades or so, we’ve seen lots of tech ideas emerge and thrive. Yet, sometimes many seem to fall short of their promise. AI, once relegated to science-fiction novels and the wet dreams of Silicon Valley, is now ubiquitous. It’s in everything from your email to your kid’s homework help to the recommendation engine in every media tool you use. But you may still wonder: What the hell is AI exactly?

You’ve been burned by tech before. Remember “Big Data”? Or “Machine Learning”? And my favorite, “Web3”? They all seemed so revolutionary — until they weren’t. Is AI another one of those overhyped ideas? Most of the time it feels like a vague concept, completely as oversold as its predecessors. And the skepticism is still pervasive. AI is just another term to send CEOs and CTOs scrambling to install some algorithm; bravely entering the next frontier of computing.

Rewind back to the early 2010s. You’ll find a world split on AI. One faction, Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence in 2014 stirs up visions of terminator-style rogue machines taking over the world. Humans become pets. And in 2018, Kai-Fu Lee releases AI Superpowers, highlighting China’s weaponizing of AI for the 1984=like surveillance State; while the rest of the world sits idly by twiddling their thumbs.

Both books were on to something real but missed the point. Fast forward to today, and the AI now changing the game isn’t plotting our…