One of the hardest lessons I learned in tech, maybe in life, was that if people don't want it you're done. It doesn't matter that you think it's the coolest an

One of the hardest lessons I learned in tech, maybe in life, was that if people don't want it you're done. It doesn't matter that you think it's the coolest and most amazing technology in history. It may be. So what? It doesn't matter that experts from every part of industry are yelling that "this is the future", that the march of this tech is "inevitable". They need to believe that, for their own reasons. It doesn't matter that academics from Yale, Harvard and MIT are publishing a dozen new papers on it every week. For the mostpart their horizon ends at the campus gate. It doesn't matter that investors are clamouring to give you money and inviting you to soirees to woo you because your project has the latest buzzwords in the name. Investors have to invest in something. And it doesn't matter if market research people are telling you that the latent demand and growth opportunity is huge. People tell them what they want to hear. The real test - and I wish I had known this when I was twenty - is do ordinary people on the London Omnibus want it? Not my inner ego projection. Not my wishful thinking. Not what "the numbers" say. Go and ask them. My experience right now - from asking people (for a show I make) is that people are shit scared of AI and if they don't hold a visceral distaste for it they've an ambivalence that's about as stable nitro-glycerine on a hot day. I know that may be a difficult thing to hear as a business person. If you are harbouring in your heart any remnant of the idea that you can create demand, that they will "see the light" and once they have a taste will be back for more, or that by will and power they can be made, regulated and peer pressured into accepting your "vision", then you'd be wise to gently let go of those thoughts.