A Smarter Way to Run a Supply Chain

When Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk proclaims that artificial intelligence is "our biggest existential threat," it makes headlines worldwide. But what goes unreported is that the very search engines people used to find Musk's comments are themselves an example of how AI has subtly but forcefully become a part of everyday, real-world life. When it comes to a discussion of AI, it helps to have a sense of history--as well as a sense of humor. Thanks to premonitory proclamations by Musk, Microsoft's Bill Gates, Cambridge's Stephen Hawking and other prominent technologists, AI has become a popular topic again, after a 20-year cooling-off period. It's tempting to assume that the "dire warnings" about AI being a threat to mankind were mostly tongue-in-cheek, but the end result is that just as it happened in the 1980s and '90s, the hype over AI is again outpacing the reality (virtual and otherwise). The first question that needs to be answered though is: Whatever happened to AI and why did it go underground for so many years?