Just How Much Does the Future Depend on AI?

Summary: Looking at the 12 hottest world-changing segments in the VC-funded world shows that AI will play a key role. From the inside of the data science profession looking out it's easy to imagine that almost everything that is or will be important somehow depends on AI. Maybe that's true, but how do we tell? First of all we'd have to make a list of all the tech trends that are destined to be game changers over the mid-term, say the next 5 to 15 years. Then we could examine each one for AI content and get a better idea about just how important AI is.