Invention is the source to innovation, that is bringing products, services and process improvements to the market.  By far the majority of commercial organisations cannot claim to be researchers or inventors.  Any innovation undertaken by this majority, to prosper or survive, is typically based on someone else’s invention, knowledge or even experience.   

These organisations are expected to be beneficiaries of the current spate of AI services, apart from the technology companies releasing ChatGPT, Gemini, and all the variants out there.  Suddenly, other people’s knowledge has become highly available and synthesized.  Not using this knowledge to innovate could hasten an enterprise’s decline as competition races ahead.

The advent of AI agents also promises to introduce efficiencies, especially at scale.  This could mean an overall reduction in labour requirements, or at least a switch to more technology and business proficient employees, as technology dependence grows.

But spare a thought to all the inventors, researchers, authors, journalists, and everyone who has strived to publish any form of knowledge out there.  AI technology companies, in their rush to compete, have ridden roughshod over these people and organisations, scraping every available bit of data possible, IP and copyright laws notwithstanding.

Will these people continue to publish their ideas and knowledge?  Does it pay them to do so?  Will they sell to the highest bidder so that most knowledge is concentrated with very few firms?

It may well be that our current exuberance with AI will have long term implications on society and the systems of knowledge we take for granted, not all positive.