Think of the railroad, the Bessemer process, electric power, the internal combustion engine, or the microprocessor—each of which, like a stray spark in a fireworks factory, set off decades of follow-on innovations, permeated every part of society, and catapulted a new set of inventors and investors into power, influence, and wealth. There are ways to make money investing in the fruits of AI, but they will depend on assuming the latter—that it is once again a less propitious time for inventors and investors, that AI model builders and application companies will eventually compete each other into an oligopoly, and that the gains from AI will accrue not to its builders but to customers. The ICT wave was therefore similar to previous ones—like the investment mania of the 1830s and the Roaring ‘20s, which followed the infrastructure buildout of canals and railways, respectively—in which the human response to each stage predictably generated the next.
Published at: 2025-09-13 22:01:35
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