> The drama around AI is bit ridiculous. It's going to revolutionize every business, cure disease, make us 8000% more productive, save the world. Also: it's going to steal every knowledge-worker's job, destroy the economy, and enslave civilization! The fact that everyone feels these things simultaneously makes it clear that it's not just a fad. It's also clear that it doesn't matter whether I like AI or not; any future job I ever have is going to expect me -- as a leader -- to make decisions about it. I don't have to like it, but I'm going to have to know when to use it, or perhaps when to defend against its abuse. I was joking with a friend that it's a bit like nuclear energy: it can create abundant power, and it can also be turned into a bomb. And now companies like OpenAI and Google have been passing out little bits of plutonium from street-carts to every person on the street. It's time for me to take some home and study it.
I feel like this article makes sense from something like March 2023, not June 2024.
The radical hype it's characterizing has mostly burnt off. Something surprising may still arrive, and there remain researchers that are optimisric, but critical money supplies and product leads have begun accomodating an early plateau and the especially anxious have started talking seriously about a new AI winter and overspending.
