The article indirectly considers the point:
What could an electrical motor do in a factory that a steam engine couldn't? - There is hardly anything.
But: by tranforming the factory from a central steam engine into one electrical motor per factory machine over a long time, the production process(es) got more efficient - and this is hoped for AI, too.
Given that we're in the "inefficient motor era", per the analogy, what is the blatantly obvious next business innovation that is currently held back by needing a small improvement (say, faster token generation) from AI?
I would personally say: at least the capability for a fast generation of images (designs) - even if not perfect - does have potential considering how much professional designers charge for generating concept designs.
Even if you hire a professional designer to create the final version, the fact that I can generate, say, 10-20 design concepts to see which ones I like, and then go to a professional designer to make a final version based on the AI concept saves a lot of time and money.
(2) Outside of automation, AI is faster search. The information was there and now we can find it more quickly. This helps a great deal, but it's not fundamentally transforming access to information, which was already free and effectively limitless. But there's still value here. I think one key advantage of AI on the search side (for now, prior to meaningful degradations that might ensue) is that it can help push back against exploitative information asymmetry in insurance, consumer goods, health, etc.
It's a soda station.
Because that is when tax and "munition" laws finally caught up. Internet commerce was already well understood before that time. The major online commerce players we think of today had already been in business for years. But an outdated legal system made scaling a challenge.
What's getting in the way of AI? It seems lawmakers have actually been afraid of holding innovation back here like they did with the internet and are allowing AI to do just about anything, even things that would normally be under intense scrutiny (e.g. copyright violations).
