It’s the automation

Don’t be surprised that an AI beat chess software. Be surprised that it played 1,228,800,000 games in 4 hours.

We conflate "AI" and "automation" at our peril.

The power of automation isn't the algorithm. It's the relentless, parallel attention.

The AI that makes a drone hunt a person isn't the scary part; it's the 5,000 of them, equipped with sensors, never stopping.

The software that tells a self-driving car not to hit anyone is cool, but the array of superhuman sensors, total lack of distraction, and instantaneous response is what saves lives.

Yes, machine learning can outperform on a narrow task quickly. But it’s the abundant training data, superhuman sensors, and unswerving, unflinching automation that really makes technology overwhelming in terms of economic impact.