On December 17, 1903, my favorite inventors/engineers/innovators, Orville and Wilbur Wright, achieved sustained heavier-than-air, self-powered flight.
The airplane was amazing.
They made four flights that day:
- First flight: Orville flew 120 feet in 12 seconds.
- Second flight: Wilbur flew 175 feet.
- Third flight: Orville flew 200 feet.
- Fourth flight: Wilbur flew 852 feet in 59 seconds.
By the end of the day, they had flown a total of less than five football fields and two minutes, and the machine lay in ruins at the end of its last run.
Nobody needs to fly down the block. Nobody wants to fly in a machine that requires a rigorous knowledge of physics to operate and a complete mechanical overhaul each flight. Nobody wants to fly in a machine that will probably kill them.
The airplane was stupid.
So Orville and Wilbur dug in. Over the next two years, they turned 120 feet in 12 seconds into a twenty-mile-circling machine that could land, change riders, and take off again right away from a rather pedestrian farm field.
And from there, industry turned the airplane into an everyday part of our world. We just use it. The same was true for the automobile, electricity, computers, and the internet. Each went through the same three phases.
We’re currently in the stupid phase for AI.
Guess what’s coming?
Will you know how to use AI, or will AI be using you?
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