Wednesday 30 September 2026 5:11 am  |  Updated:  Wednesday 30 September 2026 10:13 am

What can steam trains teach us about progress in AI?

By: Paul Ormerod

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Contrary to popular belief, Stephenson’s Rocket did not hail the dawn of the steam age. Likewise, AI has actually been in development for decades, but progress could now begin to move faster than steam trains ever could, says Paul Ormerod

The economics Nobel Laureate Robert Solow famously stated in 1987: “you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics”. 

Although 40 years ago seems more or less the Dark Ages now in terms of technology, in the years leading up to Solow’s remark there had been major developments in computing. In particular, the PC had spread widely, ending the dependency on large mainframe computers for analytical work and enabling products like Word and Wordstar to replace the office typing pool.

A similar phenomenon seems to be taking place with AI. It is hardly possible to open a newspaper or open a media link without seeing some AI-related story.........

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