How AI Will Unleash An Innovation Revolution
Creative destruction celebrates the idea that innovations can destroy the very things they replace—but ultimately have a positive impact on economies and society.
Critics fear that artificial intelligence and emerging technologies will eliminate jobs and entire industries. Philippe Aghion argues in The Power of Creative Destruction that such technological advances have been the engine of U.S. prosperity and may be the key to medical discoveries, a greener planet and other innovations we cannot even imagine. In this article, we'll look at how technology revolutions evolve, which will inform how AI is likely to progress.
Vistage Speaker Marc Emmer suggests that the invention of AI in the form of ChatGPT is no different than the other great inventions of the past three centuries (e.g., steam, electricity, microprocessors) which ultimately, but rarely immediately, spawned innovations that created a standard of living that our ancestors could not have imagined.
However, he also reminds us that these innovations have invariably been accompanied by what economists have long called “creative destruction." ChaptGPT/AI will be the cause of enormous disruption in terms of disrupted or destroyed industries and job dislocation. But if history is any guide, they should be worth the cost.
Emmer’s recent article recaps where we’ve been and where AI will likely take us. It may take a few years, but as Arthur C. Clark, who created the character of the artificially intelligent computer, HAL 9000 in his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey warned, “Technological advances are vastly overrated in the short run…and vastly underrated in the long run.”
Read: How AI Will Unleash An Innovation Revolution
| 
