Are we ready for the Long Winter?

Ah, my sweet summer child. You never care for the tales of the AI revolution, preferring instead the dark stories of AI winter. Come, let old Nan spin you a yarn of the Long Night and winters that lasted a decade.

In the '70s, the maesters, clever as they were, believed they could forge intelligent machines with rule-based programming. They fancied people as mere logic machines, thinking algorithms stitched together like scarecrows would suffice. The kings lavished them with gold, but it was for naught. Their dark magic failed, for they learned that combining logical functions willy-nilly only led to chaos. Then the White Walkers came, riding their dead horses, dragging all the haughty princes to bankruptcy court. The people suffered greatly and the maesters froze in their towers same as shepherds in the fields.

In the '80s, a flicker of hope emerged as probabilistic ideas took flight, and the maesters developed expert systems and even dabbled in fuzzy logic. Gold and wine flowed anew, but not for long. These expert systems were no wiser than Hodor. The Long Night fell once more, the gold vanished, and the maesters starved.

Come the '90s, the maesters, ever persistent, returned with fresh algorithms. They called it machine learning, claiming it could predict all things. But they failed to foresee the high costs and low value of these systems. Few made it into production, and the night came again. The people froze, with no gold to be found. Yet, the maesters pressed on, and machine learning took flight once more. In the 2010s, every company celebrated a new warrior, Big Data, and deployed machine learning on their battlefields. But the promised value was elusive, and whispers of strange things in the North grew louder.

Before winter could descend again, King Samwell Altman rose to power, armed with billions in capital. A bitter man, he vowed vengeance on those who mocked his quest for AGI. His GPT was a mighty beast, and people bowed before it, fearing its power. A rival, King NVIDIA claimed his kingdom was worth more than the whole World. Yet now, it seems the GPTs are more crow than dragon, failing to conquer the lands. The masters of coin are tightening their purses once more. Rumors abound of stirrings in the North, and whispers that the White Walkers may rise once more, to invade the realm of the maesters and send them back again, penniless, to their cold, dark towers.

So heed this tale, sweet summer child, for the chill winds of disappointment can blow even in the brightest of days.