I saw people complaining the companies are yet to find the next big thing with AI, but I am already seeing countless offer good solutions for almost every field imaginable. What is this thing the tech industry is waiting for and what are all these current products if not what they had in mind?

I am not great with understanding the business point of view of this situation and I have been out from the news for a long time, so I would really appreciate if someone could ELI5.

  • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
    4·
    5 months ago

    I think most of the media coverage is hype. That doesn’t directly answer your question… But I take everything I read with a grain of salt.

    Currently, for the tech industry, it’s main use is to generate hype and drive the speculation bubble. Whether it’s useful or not, slapping the word “AI” on things and offering AI services increases the value of your company. And I personally think if they complain about this, it’s they want the bubble even bigger, but they already did the most obvious things. But that has nothing to do with “find use” in the traditional sense (for the thing itself.)

    And other inventions came with hype. Like smartphones (the iPhone.) Everyone wanted one. Lots of people wanted to make cash with that. But still, if it’s super new, it’s not always obvious at what tasks it excels and what the main benefits are in the long term. At first everyone wants in just because it’s cool and everyone else has one. In the end it turned out not every product is better with an App (or Bluetooth). And neither a phone, nor AI can (currently) do the laundry and the other chores. So there is a limit in “use” anyways.

    So I think the answer to your question: what did they have in mind… is: What else can we enhance with AI or just slap the words on to make people buy more. And to be cool in the eyes of our investors.

    I think one of the next steps is the combination with robotics. That will make it quite more useful. Like input from sensors so AI can take part in the real world, not just the virtual one. But that’s going to take some time. We’ve already started, but it won’t happen over night. And for the close future i think it’s gonna be gradual increase. AI just needs to get more intelligent, make less errors, be more affordable to run. That’s going to be a gradual increase and provide me with a better translation service on my phone, a smart-home that i can interact with better, an assistant that can clean up the mess with all the files on my computer, organize my picture folder… But the revolution already happened. I think it’s going to be constant, but smaller steps/ progress from now on.