Artificial Intelligence (AI) is hot. The opinions of it range from how it will save the world to how it will end the world. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that the truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle.

AI is technology that learns to do what we want it to do. It learns to make things or create stories, artwork, and music from examples of those things which we feed it. It can learn to produce stories on its own if it is given large volumes of stories to read, to draw pictures if given thousands of pictures to look at. It can take instructions as to what you would like it to create.

ChatGPT is an example of AI which will produce letters and resumes. It attracted one hundred million users in its first 2 months. Microsoft BING and GOOGLE Bard are examples of mega cap companies which are already using and advancing AI in their respective search engines.

AI has been quietly evolving for decades. When you type out texts or emails and your device hands you the next word or phrase that is an example of AI. As an investment opportunity AI is vastly different from the 3D-Printing or Crypto crazes. Those technologies will be part of the future for the way we work, play, and create but AI will dominate all of those things in ways not seen since the adoption of the internet. It is predicted that AI will be one million times more effective within 10 years!

Investment opportunities in AI are here right now. However, remember that at the dawn of passenger air travel there were dozens of airline stocks in North America and when the Automobile replaced the carriage there were many, many car companies. Most of those companies are gone today. Rather than chasing after the “ Needle in the Haystack” micro-cap AI stock that may go from $1.00 to $50; (Or more likely from $1.00 to $0.0) look instead at current large cap Tech players who are advancing the technology and or producing the hardware it will need. Levi Straus made far more profits than nearly all of the gold Rush miners of 1849.

My advice is not to fear it but to embrace it and respect it.