…gAIning Speed…
AI is a ‘General Purpose Technology’ : a once-in-a-generation technology, like steam power or the internet, that touches every aspect of life.
GPTs don’t function in isolation. They need complementary technologies to mature before their full potential can be realized.
The internet took several advancements such as user-friendly browsers, more affordable hardware, and robust infrastructure for its widespread use even though it was born as ARPANET in the late 1960s.
The smartphone, as an enabler of social media, took decades to reach its full potential.
Even though the internet had been around for decades, it wasn’t until the rise of mobile technology and smartphones that the social media revolution truly took off.
Other GPTs like electricity or the steam engine followed similar paths, where societal adoption lagged behind their invention due to the need for complementary innovations, infrastructure and societal readiness.
Tech innovations need a broader ecosystems of technology, policy, and social acceptance to thrive.
The fact that many businesses/industries are still in the process of ‘going digital’ highlights how slow and complex this process can be, even for technologies that are decades old.
Legacy systems, are often entrenched because they are deeply integrated into critical business processes. Transitioning from these older systems to newer technologies is expensive, complex, and often met with resistance over transitional risk.
The nearest example is computing itself.
The rapid improvement of early computers, driven by Moore’s Law, was in contrast to how long it took for them to become ubiquitous in businesses, schools, and homes.
Even though the computing power doubled every two years, early computers were still expensive, physically large, and limited in functionality. It took decades of iteration, miniaturization, and cost reduction for them to become viable for widespread use.
Initially, only governments, research institutions, and large corporations had access to computers. They required specialized environments, significant power, and skilled operators.
The introduction of personal computers in the 1970s, along with user friendly interfaces and software, was a key inflection point but ,even then, adoption took time.
Factors like affordability, ease of use, the development of complementary software and the emergence of the internet gradually made computers essential tools for everyday tasks.
ChatGPT reached 100 million users faster than any previous product in history. This is driven by the fact that it was free to access, available,novel and incredibly useful.
Technologies like LLMs stand on existing digital infrastructure, allowing them to accelerate much more quickly.
The groundwork laid by decades of computing advancements, including networking, cloud computing, and mobile devices, have created an environment where AGI technologies could thrive almost immediately.
AIm high !