Standing on the Shore*: How AI Is Disrupting the World’s Largest Industries

I don't normally comment, but given my background and general interest in the subject areas discussed, it's sparked an interest in commenting on the subject.

It's an interesting article, but I am a proponent of the idea that AI / deep learning / neural network based computing is still in it's infancy. I've worked in several of these industries and though newer companies are cutting into market share through a mixture of "intelligent" design and large-scale ingestion of data, I believe that it's important to admit we're a long way from being able to say that there is really a dramatic revolution through adoption if artificial intelligence / algorithms (bearing in mind I'm keeping well clear of the strong-vs-weak argument in using that term), in any given industry. Instead I think there are many fringe cases that carve out what might become the wider adoption of the future. These are nicely exemplified herein, but limited to mostly brute forcing the computational abilities of our limited (though fast and vastly impressive) advancements in technology.

For sure, the last 20 years have seen great change and so too will the next 20. However, I think it's sensible as (if/a) technological practitioner(s) to greet the change with a level and realistic perspective, we are still developing simple "AI" like systems. Also, businesses are extremely hesitant and cautious, both universally and especially across sectors, when make more than the necessary change required to one up each other. If you scrape off the top layer of innovation and hype, there is still a long way to go before we're swimming in the waters of a technical revolution (and one may argue how wise we are to seek it; one for another time)...