Are there limits to what AI can accomplish?

I don’t code much anymore, but I’ve been tinkering with a small group of Arduinos (apparently, like for crows, the plural for an Arduino is a “murder”). My C skills are hella rusty, and ChatGPT has been a surprisingly helpful tool for coding and debugging. Being able to throw a bunch of code, along with the error message the compiler throws, only for the robots to tell me that (1) I really shouldn’t be coding and (2) how to fix my n00b mistakes has been pretty refreshing.

Of course, none of this will come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention, but the vast number of next-generation startups that are coming our way would indicate that the AI tentacles are reaching far and wide.

The truly mind-boggling thing is how early we are in our journey with AI. The current-generation technology is the tech equivalent of a toddler, and all the mediocre reviews various generative AI software is getting is akin to judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree.

“I’m surprised no one has done a parody of actually reviewing a three-month-old baby, and saying all it does is poop in its pants, and it can’t even finish complete sentences,” Steve Blank said in an interview with TechCrunch last year. “Copilot has changed the life of every programmer, period. It has probably increased productivity by 50%, and that is if you are using it poorly.”