The robots are coming!Well, actually, they’re already here in a variety of industries, but artificial intelligence is absolutely going to be a huge catalyst for economic expansion and betterment.
I was talking to a farmer acquaintance recently who told me something amazing. The conversation went something like this:– Me: How many hours per day do you spend on the tractor?– Farmer: Now many at all. The tractor can drive itself now.
In 1900, about 40% of Americans were farmers. Now, it’s 1%. Technology has reduced the need for human input. Mechanized agriculture is just one example. Others are all around us:1. Electricity2. Satellites3. the assembly line
Perhaps the greatest technological advance of our lifetime is artificial intelligence (AI). If you’ve been to a city like Austin, San Franciso, Phoenix, or Las Vegas you’ve seen a form of it in action on the roads.
Autonomous cars are in the news frequently as Waymo, Tesla, and others race to launch robotaxi services. At the core of the technology is a form of artificial intelligence called neural nets which are the artificial brain of the car.
AI has many other applications. It will be used to analyze complex data. AI will help automate our lives, making us more efficient. I suspect that many use cases haven’t even been thought of yet.
And AI will lead to massive productivity gains. So, we’ll have more wealth. At the same time, humans will be liberated from mundane, repetitive, and dangerous jobs. At work, we’ll use our brains more. However, we’ll also work less.