‘I Believe It’s a Bubble’: What Smart People Are Saying About AI (Correct)

The new technology would change everything, the evangelist said. It was “transforming culture, economics and politics far more thoroughly than the computer age did,” he wrote. “A new economy is emerging, based on a new sphere of cornucopian radiance—reality unmassed and unmasked, leaving only the promethean light.”

George Gilder, the writer and tech guru, published these words in late 2000. The revolutionary technology to which he was referring: fiber-optic cable. He had cause for optimism. In the previous few years, the so-called information superhighway had snaked its way across the country, introducing many Americans to the internet. The boom ...