Every AI, Everywhere, All At Once

People are pretty skeptical about AI.

ChatGPT hallucinates. Dall E can’t draw hands. Even our old friends Siri, Google, and Alexa have made a lot of frustrating mistakes over the years.

We’re being told that some kind of liftoff is taking place in 2023, with mind-blowing advances in all sorts of fields just around the corner. It feels like we’ve seen this movie before.

Four of the most dangerous words in the English language are: “this time, it’s different.” Nevertheless, I want to make that case with you today.

This skepticism is not without reason; we've been promised significant breakthroughs before, only to be left waiting. In fact, the phenomenon of technology's promises outrunning its actual progress is so common it has a name: "Amara's Law," after the futurist Roy Amara, which posits:

We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

In the realm of AI, the cycle of hype and disillusionment has happened more than once…