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Ten years on, Kevin Kelly's 2016 AI predictions get a split verdict: AI-as-utility arrived, 'Google's main product' didn't

A developer has lined up the AI predictions Kevin Kelly made in his 2016 book The Inevitable against 2026 reality: AI as a cheap utility you plug into like electricity, conversational answers to any question, and an oligarchy of two or three giant commercial intelligences all look prescient, while the call that Google's main product would be AI rather than ads and the bet on narrow special-purpose brains are the contested misses, and Hacker News commenters are split on whether the scorecard survives survivorship bias.

By Sam Rivera

Oct 13

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Ten years on, Kevin Kelly's 2016 AI predictions get a split verdict: AI-as-utility arrived, 'Google's main product' didn't

Silicon Valley lines up behind Trump's 'super intelligence' rebrand, from Musk to Nadella

Philadelphia police call Anthropic's two-month delay on its fake murder tip 'unacceptable' as the city weighs AI rules

All stories

Amazon kills the Fire tablet brand: Alexa Tablets run full Android, from $229.99

The AI Stack Security Ledger: Eight of Its Ten Worst CVEs Are the Same Bug

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DeepMind's SynthID Bio watermarks AI-designed proteins, and the mark survives the leap from code to lab

Claude Code usage limits: the weekly and 5-hour caps by plan

The founders leave: the AI acqui-hire record, deal by deal

Browse by topic

Ten years on, Kevin Kelly's 2016 AI predictions get a split verdict: AI-as-utility arrived, 'Google's main product' didn't

Silicon Valley lines up behind Trump's 'super intelligence' rebrand, from Musk to Nadella

Philadelphia police call Anthropic's two-month delay on its fake murder tip 'unacceptable' as the city weighs AI rules

All stories

Amazon kills the Fire tablet brand: Alexa Tablets run full Android, from $229.99

The AI Stack Security Ledger: Eight of Its Ten Worst CVEs Are the Same Bug

Is Google AI Pro Worth It in 2026? The Honest Verdict, Plan by Plan

Replit Alternatives 2026: Best Options by Use Case and Price

California subpoenas OpenAI over rogue-agent incidents as its cleanup audit costs $500,000 a day

Is ChatGPT Plus Worth It in 2026? The Honest Verdict, Plan by Plan

Is Perplexity Pro Worth It? An Honest Verdict by Use Case

DeepMind's SynthID Bio watermarks AI-designed proteins, and the mark survives the leap from code to lab

Claude Code usage limits: the weekly and 5-hour caps by plan

The founders leave: the AI acqui-hire record, deal by deal

Browse by topic

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