SHORT ESSAY
The Suck-a-Big-One Year of the AI Tortoises
After the hype, we’re getting real about where AI can, and can’t, improve our lives
I am a huge fan of Aesop’s Fables. Probably because I have the attention span of a puppy and they’re really short. But I can, at least, claim some kind of kudos for appreciating their immortal salience. So can the hordes of c-suite executives who dumped gazillions into AI ventures, many of whom seem to be hastily transitioning from “move fast” hares to “let’s chill” tortoises.
You can’t blame them. Last year, AI was going to fix the planet, replant Eden, take your job, and kill us all. The tech scene was lit on fire, the money people opened their wallets, and executives fell over each other in a race to capitalise on whatever may come. This year, we’re hoping that our AI prototypes will find some kind of usefulness in a back office function somewhere, even if it’s just a 1% efficiency gain in the toilet’s hand dryers.
The AI hype bubble has burst. And it’s burst because there just isn’t enough low hanging fruit for this new technology to pick. Step back in tech history and you’ll see something very different. Early productivity programs, for instance — like spreadsheets and word processors — found their market fit quickly because it was…
