alt Hacker NewsYep, and the same with the internet. During the 1990s and 2000s, people kept wondering why the internet wasn't showing up in productivity numbers. Many asked if the internet was therefore just a fad or bubble. Same as some now do with AI.
It takes time for technology to show measurable impact in enormous economies. No reason why AI will be any different.
Replies
Also no particular reason to group it in with those two. There are plenty of things that never showed up at all. It's just not a signal It's kind of like "My kid is failing math, but he's just bored. Einstein failed a lot too you know". Regardless of whether Einstein actually failed anything, there are a lot more non-Einsteins that have failed.
It didn't take mobile apps with the launch of the iPhone 20 years to add to the economy though, did it?
Sure, but you have to consider Carl Sagan's point, "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." Some truly useful technologies start out slow and the question is asked if they are fads or bubbles even though they end up having huge impact. But plenty of things that at first appeared to be fads or bubbles truly were fads or bubbles.
Personally I think AI is unlikely to go the way of NFTs and it shows actual promise. What I'm much less convinced of is that it will prove valuable in a way that's even remotely within the same order of magnitude as the investments being pumped into it. The Internet didn't begin as a massive black hole sucking all the light out of the room for anything else before it really started showing commensurate ROI.