Data abundance is not a must for artificial intelligence

But the kind of power generation that Edison pioneered on that September day in 1882 put us on a trajectory that has had unfortunate outcomes. He kicked into overdrive our reliance on fossil fuels for energy, allowing it to permeate all aspects of our lives--from the electricity we need to power our homes, offices and factories, to the petroleum we need to run our cars, ships and planes. This forced us down a path of high-energy consumption that has resulted in the rapid depletion of naturally occurring carbon-based fuel sources and inflicted near-irreversible damage on our planet. Edison's choice of coal as the fuel source for his power plant should not be taken as indicative of his support for fossil fuels as a source of energy. At least in the context of transportation, he believed that automobiles should run on electricity--not petrol--and even built a vehicle powered by alkaline batteries of his own invention.