Machine Learning and AI: When to Start?

If you want to build a ship to take humans to Proxima Centauri (the nearest star to the Earth), when should you start the project? If you start today, you might be ready to launch your ship in about 500 years, and accounting for exponential technological advances, you might get there in 10,000 years or so. However, if you wait 5,000 years to start building your ship, you may only need 500 years of travel time. So waiting 5,000 years to start the project might get you there 5,000 years before people who start the project today. This completely hypothetical thought-starter is one of my favorite ways to explore investment strategies in the age of exponentialism. When to start using machine learning in your business is not a hypothetical question; it's a question you must answer today.