Are the new GPTs - Generative Pre-trained Transformers - powering the current wave of AI tools actually the emergence of a new GPT - General Purpose Technology - that we will soon find embedded into every aspect of our lives? Earlier examples of GPTs include tech like steam power, electricity, radio, and computing, all tech that is foundational to our modern way of life. Will our AI tools soon join this pantheon as another long wave of technological progress begins?

Bibliography
Bresnahan, T. F., & Trajtenberg, M. (1995). General purpose technologies “Engines of growth”? Journal of Econometrics, 65(1), 83–108.

Kurz, M. (2023). The Market Power of Technology: Understanding the Second Gilded Age. Columbia University Press.

Nye, D. E. (1990). Electrifying America: Social meanings of a new technology, 1880-1940. MIT Press.

Rosenberg, N. (1982). Inside the black box: Technology and economics. Cambridge University Press.

Winner, L. (1993). Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding it Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology. Science Technology & Human Values, 18(3), 362–378.

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