I'm Afraid I Can't Do That Dave

Imagine you lived a hundred or so years ago as a buggy maker or a blacksmith. Horseless carriages were arriving on the scene. Electric, gas, steam powered. They were expensive toys for the wealthy. They did not fair well on mushy dirt roads. But still, you had some angst about what the future might hold and how you would work to feed yourself and your family if these inventions ever took off.

I wonder how many people back then could envision an interconnected Federal highway system and interstate. How many had any idea that the gas engine would prevail. Who understood that the entire world economy would be based upon petroleum? Doubtful but a few, if even that many.

Who knew the environmental problems carbon based fuels would create? Problems that threaten the very existence of our planet.

Today we are at the beginning of the new automobile. It is called AI. It is already here and no matter what we try to do it is not going away. Because hindsight is always 20-20, and the way forward is done largely in the dark. We really have no idea what the future holds.

Like the blacksmith of yesterday how many taxi drivers, delivery people, and long haul truckers are contemplating what they will do to feed themselves and their families when self-driving vehicles become the norm? How many other businesses and services that support these people will fall by the wayside? How long to I have before this wave of innovation takes root?

Change is always a certainty of any time. Most change is slow and deliberate. We have time to prepare. Time to react. Time to adapt.

But there are times in the course of human history that hit us like a flash flood in the desert. This is one of those times.