AI is going to change everything.
This is not a new statement. In fact, I have written this dozens of times. However, if we look at how things are truly interconnected, the impact of AI can be envisioned.
What we are not dealing with is disruption. Instead, we are entering a period of transformation. Everything is going to be affected. The technology will seep into all aspects of life.
This is often overlooked. The economic paradigm of cheaper costs resulting in greater usage dumbfounded some of the brightest minds.
For example, Bill Gates never envisioned that anyone would need more than 64 KB of RAM. Today, even a middle of the road PC has 64 GB, more than 100K times. Gates is still one of the richest people in the world with Microsoft having one of the largest market caps.
Seeing the potential of economic viability due to technology advancement's impacts on costs is crucial.
The Impact of Interconnected Technological Advancement
Another one of the sayings I like is:
Nothing operates in a vacuum.
In other words, impacts are not felt in isolation. They have broader impacts, even when it is not clear. That means seemingly unconnected industries affect each other.
Take oil fracking a decade ago. This resulted in a near 50% reduction in the price of oil. While there are ups and downs, this has held steady. The impetus on this was a 3% increase in the total output of oil. That is all.
Now consider what this means to a small retail shop that is getting deliveries. The price impact, since oil is presently fundamental to economic productivity, is not measurable.
When it comes to the digital world, things spread even faster. The combination of hardware and software is explosive.
At the center of it all is the GPU. This means that Nvidia is a company to watch. Each time it brings out a new line of processors (Blackwell being their latest), they are able to offer more processing for the same money. This alone has a huge effect.
Next we couple this with the fact that each generation is more energy efficient. That reduces the power consumption on the processing. Again, there is a cost savings, from a price per unit perspective.
Another layer is algorithms. Over time, more efficiency is gained through better algorithms. This also have an impact on the capability of the processing.
What results is an exponential curve. Of course, within the digital world, this affect the Internet in general. Applications and infrastructure all see a similar thrust upward.
AI Emerging In All Areas
Medical. Logistics. Energy. Legal.
Everywhere we look, there is speculation about the impact of AI on different industries. While many debate the AI bubble scenario. progress is being made.
The fact that people dispute what is taking place causes the slowly, slowly, fast scenario. This means things appear to be not moving until, suddenly one day, it all arrived.
I do not contest where this is all going. The pace certainly can be argued, since there will be acceleration and slowdowns in progress.
Consider the effect of transportation changes. What happens when things are reduced by 15%? The ripple effect across the entire economy is profound. Here is where we have trillions of dollars worth of productivity altered due to a single industry.
Naturally, automation is at the forefront of this. Transportation affects every industry, even it only applies to workers getting to and from work. A net reduction impacts everything.
We are conditioned to segment things. This comes from many forms of conditioning. Even within the investing realm, people focus upon individual sectors.
Stepping back and seeing the bigger moves is vital. Here is where grasping the totality of impacts helps. Trends become clearer from this perspective, helping us to overlook some of the missteps people made in the past.