The Allure of General Purpose Technologies
Generative AI is merely the most recent one.The printing press, steam engine, electricity, mass production, the computer, the micro-chip, and the Internet are some of the biggest examples of general-purpose technologies (GPTs) over the last five hundred years, with an increasing number of them appearing over the last two centuries. Touted by economists, they define GPTs as those technologies that have impacted on many economic sectors and thus ended up changing the world, mostly for the good. Some of the world’s most valuable companies have succeeded with these GPTs most recently on the Internet. The so-called magnificent seven — Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Netflix, Nvidia, and Amazon — all succeeded on the Internet, and investors are looking for the next GPTs, most recently in generative AI of Read More ›