"If the current frenzy over artificial intelligence feels familiar to Peter Cappelli, the George W. Taylor professor of management at the Wharton School, it's because he's seen this movie before. He points to the period between 2015 and 2017, when major consultancies and the World Economic Forum confidently predicted that driverless trucks would eliminate truck drivers within a few years."
""You didn't have to think very long to realize that just wasn't going to make sense in practice," Cappelli told Fortune on Zoom from his home in Philadelphia. "You didn't have to think very long about driverless trucks to think about, okay, what happens when they need gas? You know? Or what happens if they have to stop and make a delivery? And if they have to have an employee sitting with them, of course it defeats the purpose, right?""
"Cappelli, who recently partnered with Accenture on a series of podcasts to get to the bottom of what AI is actually doing to jobs, warned against listening too closely to the companies that are talking their book, or trying to sell you on their new products. "If you're listening to the people who make the technology, they're telling you what's possible, and they're not thinking about what is practical.""
Current AI excitement mirrors past overenthusiasm about automation, exemplified by confident predictions that driverless trucks would soon eliminate truck drivers. Technological possibility often diverges from practical implementation because everyday constraints—refueling, deliveries, regulatory and staffing needs—make full automation impractical in many contexts. Vendors and technology makers frequently emphasize what is possible rather than what is practical, which can amplify hype. Partnerships and analyses have examined AI's real effects on jobs and raised skepticism about inflated claims. Broader evidence, including studies of generative AI pilots, indicates many initiatives fail to deliver at scale.
Read at Fortune
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