Back in 1990 Hotdogs were extremely popular. They were everywhere; from sporting events like baseball, Football, NASCAR, Tennis & Basketball games; amusement parks and other gatherings. According to The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) in 1990 Americans consumed an estimate of 20 billion Hotdogs. Hot dogs’ popularity was based on two reasons. The first was convenience. They are easy to cook; that’s plain and simple. The second reason was affordability.

Hot dogs became so popular that McDonalds and Burger King started selling them and offered them as limited menu items. To further capitalize off this popularity the Viskase Corporation came up with an idea. Since they manufactured hot dogs, they created an edible ink and they wanted to print advertisements on the hot dogs itself. No company actually wanted to do this because even though hot dogs were popular it would be impossible for your message to be seen; since ketchup, mustard and other things would cover it and people would eat right through it.  Needless to say, no one took Viskase on the advertising offer.

33 years later we are now experiencing the popularity of AI like Chat GPT. Companies like Google, Microsoft and Meta are rushing to perfect this technology.  Some college students are using it to write their papers and some other people are using Chat GPT to do their work and even research. As AI technology becomes more in-demand, the purpose of its implementation has been a source of debate. A study conducted by OpenAI and the University of Pennsylvania revealed that around 80% of the US workforce’s duties which would be 10% of their tasks are affected by Chat GPT. Examples of some professions likely to be affected are: personal finance advisors and brokers, insurers, data processors, journalists, publishers, credit and mortgage brokers.

In this day and age, it appears that the rise in popularity of AI is more important to consider than the structure of the technology itself. Yet, surprisingly, numerous questions related to AI remain unexplored and ignored.

It seems as though everyone wants to jump on board with AI. Just like how hot dogs seemed to pop up everywhere, companies such as Google, Meta and Microsoft are determined to further cultivate AI. It is almost reminiscent of how popularized hot dogs became; places like McDonalds and Burger King were just a few of many outlets that had them available.

Artificial Intelligence has quickly become a buzzword in the tech industry. Major corporations like Google, Meta and Microsoft have been spearheading their own unique projects to capitalize on the popularity of it. This is similar to the hot dog craze; McDonalds and Burger King were in the burger business but they sold hot dogs as a limited menu item. They did this all because of popularity. The popularity of the hot dogs became so dominant that a company came up with a way to engrave advertisements on them to market it to customers. This too is similar to how the top tech companies are rushing to first ones to bring AI into full fruition.

As artificial intelligence progresses, it is up to business leaders to take responsibility for ethical and moral considerations. There needs to be a time to assess the potential risks of AI and not be driven by its popularity and buzz.