A.I. Was Supposed to Give Us New Killer Apps. What Happened?

Mr. Ford is a technologist, an essayist and a contributing Opinion writer.

The number of mobile apps available on Apple’s App Store was up 30 percent last year, according to one estimate. But downloads were up only 3 percent.

It isn’t just apps. Software in general — everything made of code — is suddenly available in huge, heaping quantities. Thanks to artificial intelligence, you can now, in plain language, tell a computer to write code, in plain language, and it will often do an excellent job. These capabilities get better nearly every week.

But when........

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