Wednesday in the Woods 011 - AI Winters: Structural or cyclical?
Channel: Licensio, LLC
Date: 09/12/2021

Are we rolling downhill into another inevitable #AIWinter?  Or are #AI winters really a function of structural choices we could avoid?  On this week’s #WednesdayInTheWoods, we explore these ideas in the context of concepts like #technology diffusion and #macroeconomics - but also speak practically about what people in #research and #business can do to avoid it.

At a high level, we’re really asking this question: Are “AI Winters” #cyclical or #structural?  Spoiler alert: They’re both.

First, let’s start by acknowledging the arbitrary distinction between AI and technology.  It’s possible that we might enter a “technology winter” generally.  Most of the things we say about AI are equally true of technology broadly.  

Speaking of technology, there is a large body of research about technology #innovation and adoption that predates AI.  Much of this research comes from areas like #sociology in contexts like agriculture or in the “philosophy of science.”  

For example, Everett Rogers - most famous for coining the phrase “early adopter” - grew up on an Iowa farm.  As a kid, he watched as some farmers adopted new technologies and some did not.  What drove that adoption?  Was it economic or social?  Could it be communicated or only experienced?

Lessons learned from people like Rogers can translate directly into social acceptance and commercial adoption today.

Meanwhile, folks like Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn were talking about how technology is “created” in the first place.  Is technology about little incremental changes in a stable environment, up and to the right over time?  Or, was technology development about big lurches, sometimes backward, gated by how stubborn people are?

Either way, reading Popper and Kuhn can teach you a lot about what you see today in the world of ACM or the C-suite.

There are clearly structural aspects to how we “create” and “adopt” innovation.  There are choices we make as researchers - what to include in textbooks, how to fund early researchers, what to accept into peer review and conference publication.  

Then, there are choices we make in business and investing - what kinds of problems do focus on and what timescale do we care about?  

There are also choices we don’t really make.  Will VC fall out of favor with endowments? Could the JOBS Act result in more patient firms?  Will the NSF or Tier 1 research universities change the way they fund or hire?

And most importantly, there is the “macro” economic and social environment.  Will access to capital to invest dry up if rates rise and equity markets fall?  Will a privacy backlash result in regulation that limits or prevents commercialization?

I’m not sure which story will be end up being “true.”  But I am sure that all of these elements will, over time and to varying degrees, end up in the narrative.  For those of us not just watching from the sidelines, hopefully we can avoid drafting another winter of discontent.