MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Don't Get Distracted by the Hype Around Generative AI

Technology bubbles can pose difficult quandaries for business leaders: They may feel pressure to invest early in an emerging technology to gain an advantage over competitors but don’t want to fall for empty hype. As we enter a period of greater economic uncertainty and layoffs in multiple industries, executives are grappling with questions about where to cut costs and where to invest more.

The rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence and machine learning poses a particular challenge to business decision makers. Investments in proven predictive models are increasingly seen as sound and are expected to drive an increase in spending on AI from $33 billion in 2021 to $64 billion in 2025. But further out on the cutting edge, generative AI is sparking a huge amount of noise and speculation.

About the Author

Lee Vinsel (@sts_news) is an associate professor of science, technology, and society at Virginia Tech; the host of Peoples & Things, a podcast about human life with technology; and coauthor of The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession With the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most (Random House, 2020).

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