This post was not generated by AI. If it was, you likely wouldn’t be able to tell, so you’ll just have to trust me.
It’s quite remarkable to technologists and businesspeople (and educators and politicians and artists…) that the authenticity of authorship is increasingly complicated. AI applications can generate far more than simple blog posts, we all know, and therefore the white-hot interest in AI and the explosion of its usage globally should matter to any organization’s leadership.
This phenomenon has been building over time. The first chatbot was created in 1966 by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum. IBM’s Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in chess in 1997. Consumers have been using and getting more and more comfortable with Siri (since 2011) and Alexa (2014). Google's DeepMind AlphaGo defeated Ke Jie, the world's number one Go player, in 2017. More recently, ChatGPT and Large Language Models (LLMs) have ignited mass public awareness.
How popular is AI relative to other innovative technologies? We consulted Google Trends, which facilitates comparisons between search terms. For the United States, since 2004 when the historical data for Google Trends begins, we compared AI, data science, machine learning, analytics and IoT. [View the webpage here.] As you see, there is no contest.
Can anything challenge AI's dominance in search? I found one candidate: Taylor Swift.
Taylor reigned supreme for many years until around 2020, when AI and Taylor began "jockeying" for leadership. In mid‑2024, we see that AI is now ahead and still on the ascendancy. This comparison is just for fun, but it shows AI’s standing in popular culture. The chart has elicited chuckles—and requests for a copy!—from executives who attended my recent presentations of the results of Princeton’s and Northwestern University’s Transportation Center inaugural AI in Rail survey.
AI is Already Pervasive in the Workplace
There is not only awareness of AI, there is extensive and increasing usage, as evidenced in Microsoft and LinkedIn’s recently published findings. They reported that 75 percent of knowledge workers now use AI at work. The article notes, “Employees, overwhelmed and under duress, say AI saves time, boosts creativity and allows them to focus on their most important work. While leaders feel the pressure to turn individual productivity gains into organizational impact, employees aren’t waiting to reap the benefits: 78% of AI users are bringing their own AI tools to work. The opportunity for every leader is to channel this momentum into ROI.”
I discussed how the AI momentum is being channeled and managed currently with leaders of Class I railroads, regional railroads, passenger railroads, and technology providers. These interviews supplemented our online survey, and the intriguing results illustrate different organizational priorities, management approaches, and business areas of focus. We explored where AI is an effective simulation of human intelligence to think and learn and perform tasks that usually require a human to perform, and where it can augment human capabilities. If you would like to study the results, email me to set up a call.
By the way, the illustration of the singing robot facing Taylor Swift was generated by ChatGPT 4.0. I thought that graphic augmented this post…