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TECH & INNOVATION: The AI Winter

AI may seem not the new hot thing, but it actually took a long time to deliver enough value to become profitable.
  •  Editors note: Besides following tech developments, our author is a musical composer (Juilliard-trained). He has provided a musical composition for you to listen to while reading this column. This piece is called “The Edged.”

You may have noticed that quantum computing has been in the news lately, and that the valuation of this technology fluctuates widely. This is because the news articles generally fail to distinguish among the different phases of in emergence of a new technology. Several words have been used interchangeably—Research, Technology, Development, and Innovation—which, although related, actually mean different things. They operate within different time frames and at different times within the evolutionary and sometimes revolutionary processes of gaining insight and delivering value. If we look at what these four stages mean, we can better understand why investors in quantum computing have turned fickle.

Artificial Intelligence is a good demonstration of how the evolutionary process, including those four stages, works. Although, at the moment, artificial intelligence seems to be a hot area and sormewhat useful to some groups of people, it took a very long time for this to happen. There were, in fact, two key AI winter periods: the first one in the 1970s and the second one in the 80s and 90s. The term AI winter refers to periods in the history of artificial intelligence when interest, funding, and development in the field slowed down significantly. They were characterized by disillusionment and pessimism due to unmet expectations, technical limitations, and lack of practical applications.

I was a casualty of the second AI winter when I founded a company named INTERVAL to deliver a 4GL (fourth-generation AI language) called Interval in the early 80s. INTERVAL was an acronym that stood for interactive visual analysis language. After taking a workshop at the MIT Enterprise Forum, I raised over $120,000 from two different investors the next weekend. We only lasted for a couple of years and never succeeded in selling even $100,000 worth of software, so we went back to working for others, but there was a brief moment when I thought I was a hot CEO under 30 years old. To discover what went wrong, I took an artificial intelligence class at Harvard in Common Lisp, a programming language for creating AI programs.

The AI winter occurred because AI was overhyped, and unrealistic expectations about its potential led to disappointment. And there were technical challenges in the form of limitations and hardware, algorithms, and data, preventing the realization of ambitious goals. Then when practical applications failed to materialize, investment interest dried up.

We are now in a period called the AI spring because computational power has caught up. The data availability enables modern machine-learning languages to learn effectively, and we have had breakthroughs in deep learning, algorithms, and natural language processing. I must remind people that the list programming language was invented in 1958, and people have been working on AI for almost 70 years. It did not happen overnight, so it is worth looking at what Research, Technology, Development, and Innovation mean.

Research systematically investigates and studies material sources or phenomena to establish facts, gain knowledge, and draw new conclusions. Research focuses on understanding why and how something works, and it does not necessarily have an immediate practical application. Instead, it is often exploratory, theoretical, and open-ended.

Development uses the insights gained from research to create practical applications, including product systems and processes that solve real-world problems. When I was working in research at Bose and then at Apple for more than a decade, a very small percentage of what was discovered in research showed up in products shipped out into the marketplace. Until the research gets into development, nobody will make any money, which is why quantum computing has had a big sell-off; it is simply premature to invest and expect a return quickly.

There is a lot of confusion about using the words research, technology, development, and innovation. They do not mean the same thing.. Howard Lieberman created this image with ChatGPT 4o.

Technology refers to the tools, systems, devices, and methods created through scientific knowledge to solve problems and perform specific functions. It can be tangible or intangible, such as hardware or software. But where the rubber meets the road is in Innovation.

Innovation has to do with adopted insight. If there is no insight, there is no Innovation. And if no one adopts that insight, there is also no Innovation. Innovation comes when the technology has been applied substantially enough to have economic impact.

This is why I want to define these four words and why this column has been changed its name from “Tech Talk” to “Tech and Innovation.” There is usually a substantial gap between research, development, technology, and innovation. There is also a gap in funding and time.

This gap exists because change is generally resisted. Change is risky, expensive, and takes longer than everybody thought it would, which is why it usually occurs at the edges, at the intersection between different fields.

When you are not operating in the center of a field that has been around for a long time but closer to the periphery where that field comes up against other fields, there is a lot less resistance because the people who operate at the edges are not as conservative and stubborn as the ones who are in the middle of a silo.

Action at the edges of different domains. Howard Lieberman created this image with ChatGPT 4o.

What are the prospects for innovation in the area where we live? Berkshire County, while in Massachusetts, shares borders with Vermont, Connecticut, and New York and, so, is literally at the edge of three other states. At least a dozen major cities or urban centers within a three-hour radius of Great Barrington have an incredible and unique mix of cultural, educational, and economic opportunities.

If innovation talks place on the edges, what a perfect high-value place for Innovation to occur!

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The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.

Continue reading

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The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.