Surviving AI: The promise and peril of artificial intelligence

by Calum Chace

The gurus of Big Data are Oxford professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Economist journalist Kenneth Cukier, who published Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think in 2013.

As Douglas Adams said, anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things, anything invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting, and anything that is in the world when you’re born is just a natural part of the way the world works.

Digitized, exploiting the ability to share information at the speed of light Deceptive, because their growth, being exponential, is hidden for some time and then seems to accelerate almost out of control (we will look at exponential growth in chapter 5) Disruptive, because they steal huge chunks of market share from incumbents Dematerialized, in that much of their value lies in the information they provide rather than anything physical, which means their distribution costs can be minimal or zero Demonetized, in that they can provide for nothing things which customers previously had to pay for dearly Democratized, in that they make products and services which were previously the preserve of the rich (like cellphones) available to the many.