Artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks. We’re in the midst of a wave of excitement around AI such as hasn’t been seen for a few decades. But those previous periods of inflated expectations led to troughs of disappointment. Will this time be different?
Most likely. Applications of AI such as predictive analytics are already decreasing costs and improving reliability of industrial machinery. Furthermore, the funding and research going into AI now comes from a wide range of commercial firms. It’s not solely the province of relatively narrow government and academic research.
That said, it’s easy to look at wins in specific domains and generalize to an overly optimistic view of AI writ large.