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\t\t\tIllustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins \/ Futurism. Source: Justin Sullivan \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
It sounds like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is already coming up with excuses in case the whole AI boom turns out to be a massive bust\u2014 which, by the way, he\u2019s warning might come to pass.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday, Nadella pontificated about what would constitute such a speculative bubble, and said that the long-term success of AI tech hinges on it being used across a broad range of industries \u2014 as well as seeing an uptick in adoption in the developing world where it\u2019s not as popular, the Financial Times reports<\/a>. If AI fails, in other words, it\u2019s everyone else\u2019s fault for not using it.<\/p>\n Nadella explained the pitfalls the AI industry would need to avoid, perhaps betraying his own anxieties about its future.<\/p>\n \u201cFor this not to be a bubble by definition, it requires that the benefits of this are much more evenly spread,\u201d Nadella said, as quoted by the FT. The \u201ctell-tale sign of if it\u2019s a bubble,\u201d he added, would be if only tech companies were benefitting from the rise of AI. He gave the example of a pharmaceutical company using AI to accelerate drug trials; it doesn\u2019t need to be used to discover the \u201cmagical molecule,\u201d but provide some other tangible, less extraordinary benefit to developing the product.<\/p>\n Nadella is adamant that these kinds of boosts that AI provides will justify AI and carry the industry, stressing less spectacular and more practical applications of the tech.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m much more confident that this is a technology that will, in fact, build on the rails of cloud and mobile, diffuse faster, and bend the productivity curve, and bring local surplus and economic growth all around the world,\u201d he proclaimed.<\/p>\n Nadella\u2019s anxiety-tinged and more mundane-sounding forecasts for AI\u2019s future comes as he\u2019s been notably defensive about AI lately, as Microsoft reaffirms its commitment<\/a> to spend tens of billions more on data centers and other AI-related costs. Earlier this month, he begged the public<\/a> to stop using the term \u201cslop,\u201d the rapidly accepted new lingo for describing the shoddy text, images, and videos churned out by AI models, which Merriam-Webster crowned word of the year<\/a>. Nadella\u2019s thesis seemed to be that we should stop being mean about AI as it refines its \u201cjagged edges\u201d \u2014 which could take a while, by his own admission.<\/p>\n He isn\u2019t alone in tamping down his promises for AI as a cloud of uncertainty looms over the industry, with experts continuing to raise the specter of AI progress hitting a wall<\/a>, and noting that years into the AI boom, the tech still hasn\u2019t yielded meaningful gains in productivity<\/a>. Many tech CEOs not named Elon Musk<\/a> have tried to pretend<\/a> that they haven\u2019t been using the pursuit of building a fabled artificial general intelligence, or AGI, as the rallying cry for the industry this whole time, as the idea of creating such a system that surpasses human intelligence seems more and more far fetched in the immediate term.<\/p>\n Striking a similar tone, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar declared<\/a> that the company will focus on \u201cpractical adoption\u201d of AI in 2026, and \u201chow people, companies, and countries are using it day to day.\u201d ChatGPT users will soon get a first hand look of what this pivot to practical economics looks like: last week, the company announced<\/a> that free users will start being targeted with sponsored ads and content based on their conversations.<\/p>\n