Tackling the dirty P word in AI and Machine Learning - Part 1

For those who are involved in AI and Machine Learning, may have noticed a trend recently. While new announcements in algorithmic advances like GPT-2 from OpenAI, EvaNet from Google and considerably more that I can't list here, have all garnered interest, industry at large seems to feel something is missing. That missing feeling is the dirty P word - productionization. This is troubling, not just for the practitioners but for the field as a whole. Before we go further in diagnosing the cause and identify remedies, let's put a definition on what productionization is (Disclaimer: this is my perspective, feel free to add a comment).