Blind to Disruption – The CEOs Who Missed the Future

I like Steve's content, but the ending misses the mark.

With the carriage / car situation, individual transportation is their core business, and most companies are not in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

I say this as someone who has worked for 7 years implementing AI research for production, from automated hardware testing to accessibility for nonverbals: I don't think founders need to obsess even more than they do now about implementing AI, especially in the front end.

This AI hype cycle is missing the mark by building ChatGPT-like bots and buttons with sparkles that perform single OpenAI API calls. AI applications are not a new thing, they have always been here, now they are just more accessible.

The best AI applications are beneath the surface to empower users, Jeff Bezos says that (in 2016!)[1]. You don't see AI as a chatbot in Amazon, you see it for "demand forecasting, product search ranking, product and deals recommendations, merchandising placements, fraud detection, translations."

[1]: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2016-letter-to...

It may be true but Bezos' comment is also classic smoke blowing. "Oh well you can't see us using <newest hype machine> or quantify it's success but it's certainly in everything we do!"

But it’s completely true — Amazon undoubtedly has a pretty advanced logistics set up and certainly uses AI all over the place. Even if they’re not a big AI researcher.

There are a lot of great use cases for ML outside of chatbots