AI in 2023: The Application Layer Has Arrived

This is a weekly newsletter exploring the collision of technology and humanity. What's exciting about AI right now is that the platform layer is solidifying, meaning that it's time for the application layer to emerge. Over the past few months, I've written several Digital Native pieces about what's happening in AI. Given that this is the topic in tech as we head into 2023, I wanted to combine those pieces into one cohesive deep-dive on AI, and then expand upon them. The result is that this is a longer piece than usual, but my hope is that it offers a "state of the union" snapshot for where we are and a hint at where we might be going. When I think about what's happening in artificial intelligence, I tend to think of two movies. One came out 33 years ago, and one came out 10 months ago. Hyperland is a mostly-forgotten 1990 film written by Douglas Adams, an author best known for writing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The premise of Hyperland (which you can watch on YouTube here) is that Adams is fed up by passive linear TV--what the film calls "the sort of television that just happens at you, that you just sit in front of like a couch potato." Seeking a more interactive form of media, Adams takes his TV to a dump, where he meets Tom (played by Tom Baker). Tom is a software agent--essentially, a digital butler capable of personalizing your information and entertainment diet to your specific interests. Tom takes our protagonist through a virtual land of hypermedia--linked text, sounds, images, and videos. In other words, Tom takes Adams on a journey through the internet.