When it comes to tech (especially AI), there are 3 quotes that come to mind for me.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.
AI is only what we can't do.What we hope to do is called "AI." And once we do it it's called "machine learning."(at about the 1:31:37 mark)
The initial promise of a new technology is mind-blowing and full of wonder. It is, essentially, magic.
Then it begins to trickle out into the world. First to the Forbes Richest List and Fortune 500 spenders, early adopters that live on the bleeding edge, and anyone who feels particularly compelled by it or feels it essential to their continued career (and thus earning potential) relevance.
Then it becomes a nearly commoditized product, which is when it becomes just another tool or feature. See: the iPhone, bluetooth, voice assistants, GPS navigation, streaming media, wifi. Etc and so on.
These strands coalesced for me this morning while listening to Benedict Evans and Toni Cowan-Brown’s Another Podcast.
We have this whole wave of what we now call "applied AI." Which is not AI anymore, it's disappeared. It's in some piece of software that's doing something that you couldn't have done before. But you're not buying it as "AI," you're buying it as "fraud protection" or whatever it is.
The goal posts march ever onward and things like AI remain in a prison of our expectations.