Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, believes that artificial Intelligence (AI) is of profound importance to global society, that it could more important to humanity than electricity or fire.
In that regard, AI is one of the biggest ideas we’ve ever seen. There haven’t been many of these ‘cross economy’ concepts, in the whole of human history – ideas the ramifications of which extend over every industry at once, benefiting every one. Other examples include Air Conditioning, Jet Travel and Indoor Plumbing. Most were developed and deployed to the economy in the last century.
In the old days, the benefits of these fundamental improvements often took a full generation for the entirety of their effects to ripple through. That’s no longer the case. Digital distribution propagates both new tools and ideas globally, almost immediately. It’s the way the internet works – one of the features of modern living. As a result, AI already drives most of the consumer digital interactions that we have. They are the brains which picks your Spotify playlist, the smarts which show you what ‘people like you’ bought when you are browsing Amazon’s store and the know how in what recommends your next Netflix binge.
iewed from this perspective, some of Google’s current focus areas, Driverless Cars and Google Home, might present a slightly different aspect.
