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What If A.I. Just Disappoints Us?
In the current, effervescent bubbling hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI) the stories we see tend to be either a wonderful utopia ahead or the end of humanity. Neither are likely. AI is going to change our societies and cultures, as technologies have done since our ancestors chipped tools from stones. We can only speculate on how for now.
Perhaps we need to think from another perspective on this wild rollercoaster ride of AI today? Maybe we might also ask what would happen if AI doesn’t pan out? What if it flails, flounders about a bit and then sort of quietly fizzles? A little engine that couldn’t.
Let’s take a wander down the path where AI didn’t quite turn out as either the proclaimers or the doomsayers predicted and ends up a nothing burger. Or perhaps just a plain old burger that tastes fine but like a greasy spoon is just somewhere we sometimes go. When we’re hungry but can’t make a decision and the AI can’t either. Or doesn’t want to.
Anything is possible with any technology. In our history, there is a far longer trail of failed technologies than of successful ones. They fail for many reasons, sometimes just one, more often for several. Cultural or societal rejection, being leapfrogged by another technology (horse, car thing), market forces, technological evolution and so on.
