The economic reality of AI has moved beyond catchphrases. McKinsey’s estimates put generative AI’s yearly economic potential at $2.6-4.4 trillion across selected use cases14. This massive figure makes it clear why organizations worldwide pour money into AI research. The European Union spent €600 million over ten years on their Human Brain Project14, which wrapped up recently.
Our stories about AI might not match what’s happening on the ground. While AI for storytelling paints compelling yet sometimes misleading futures, these narratives shape public opinion significantly. The numbers tell a different story. A ResumeBuilder survey shows that more than a third of companies used AI to replace human workers in 2023. Another 24% planed to make this switch in 20249. The U.S. Census Bureau paints a more modest picture – only 4% of U.S. businesses use AI to produce goods or services. That number should jump by almost 70% this year9.
Let me show you how our cultural myths about tech frontiers – particularly our misunderstandings about the “Wild West” – shape our views of AI today. Understanding what we got wrong about past tech regulation helps us see the emerging AI world with better clarity.
The Myth of the Wild West: What We Got Wrong
The “Wild West” stands as one of the most romanticized periods in American history. Popular culture painted a picture of a lawless frontier through dime novels, and Hollywood movies later picked up on this narrative. This portrayal of gunslingers and vigilante justice simply didn’t match reality1.
The truth paints a different picture. Frontier towns actually managed to keep well-laid-out law enforcement systems with sheriffs, marshals, and deputies. Many towns’ strict gun control laws even banned residents from carrying firearms within city limits2. Those famous gunfights and showdowns captured public imagination because they rarely happened, not because they were common3.
Bank robberies, despite their prominence in Western fiction, barely happened in real life. Records show just eight bank robberies in the entire Western region between 1859 and 19004. The word “cowboy” started as an insult linked to criminal behavior, not the heroic figure we see in popular culture3.
This storytelling did more than just entertain. The narrative shaped America’s identity around rugged individualism and frontier justice5. These stories justified western expansion as progress while ignoring women’s contributions and the real-life experiences of people of color and Indigenous communities5.
The “Wild West” lasted just 30 years, yet its distorted image still shapes how we view historical law and governance2.
From Frontier Myths to AI Hype
Just as we romanticized the Wild West, today’s AI world suffers from exaggerated capabilities and misleading narratives. “AI washing” happens when companies overstate their AI technologies to look more innovative and advanced than they really are.
Research shows that startups get 15-50% more investment just by mentioning “AI” in their pitch6. This creates a strong motivation to exaggerate – like putting “go-faster stripes on a car without upgrading the engine”6.
The media’s coverage shapes these perceptions through four main stories: how AI disrupts productivity, AI’s complexity, AI’s risks, and regulation’s effect on innovation7. These storytelling approaches push workers aside and make power imbalances worse.
Studies show that people’s position on AI stories relates to how familiar they are with the technology. The public usually thinks in terms of doomsday scenarios, while those who work with the technology see it as a path to improvement8.
Today’s regulatory landscape looks much like frontier justice, with rules that vary across different jurisdictions9. With less than 50% of U.S. states having any AI rules in place, we’re deep in “tumbleweed territory”10.
These stories have real consequences. They set unrealistic expectations, hold back real innovation, damage consumer trust, and make investment choices harder6. Only when we are willing to spot these patterns of mythmaking can we tell the difference between AI’s real potential and its overstated claims.
What History Teaches Us About AI Today
Our understanding of AI shows the same oversimplification that twisted our view of the Wild West. The biggest problem isn’t AI “going wild” – it’s our stories about it that have gone off track.
Today’s AI systems work like “black boxes.” They can’t interact well, understand human context, or explain their decisions, which makes people distrust them11. Just as Wild West myths split American identity, experts point out that AI stories push people to extreme views – either seeing it as a deadly threat or a cure-all technology12.
This split didn’t happen by chance. Tech giants tend to oversell what AI can do, and their profit-driven approach could harm humanity12. State-of-the-art AI models are nowhere near perfect – small changes in data can trick or confuse them11. These real risks get less attention than dramatic headlines.
We shouldn’t buy into overblown AI stories. Like past technologies, AI isn’t “good or bad by nature”12. Ricardo saw this coming with automation in the 1800s: “machines create or destroy jobs based on how we use them and who makes those choices”13.
So we need to stop treating AI as if it thinks for itself. It’s a tool we created that reflects our own inputs, biases, and limits. The takeaway? Good AI stories need understanding and subtlety, not fear and hype.
Conclusion
We debunked the myth of the lawless Wild West, and now we need to question our overblown stories about AI. Our examination shows how these technological frontiers fell victim to sensationalist storytelling that masked reality. The actual Western frontier managed to keep structured law enforcement and saw very few bank robberies, unlike what popular fiction suggests. Today’s AI systems work within set boundaries, though stories about them often paint a different picture.
This parallel goes even deeper. Without doubt, the Wild West’s mythology served specific cultural and political purposes that created an American identity based on rugged individualism. The current AI narratives serve interests of all sizes – from attracting investment capital to pushing corporate agendas. This kind of storytelling molds public perception and often splits views between existential threat and technological salvation.
The key lesson shows that AI, like other technologies before it, isn’t good or bad by nature. Its effects depend on our deployment choices and the people making those decisions. We shouldn’t see AI as an independent force with its own will. Instead, we should see it as our creation that mirrors our inputs, limitations, and biases.
When you read about AI being like the “Wild West”, think about the quiet reality of the historical West. The frontier wasn’t really wild – but people’s stories about it definitely were. AI isn’t running loose in the digital world, despite what our stories might suggest.
The real task isn’t about taming wild technology. We need to develop better, more nuanced ways to understand it. This means moving past both doomsday fears and utopian promises to see AI clearly as a powerful tool shaped by human decisions. Only when we are willing to accept this can we create meaningful governance frameworks that guide AI development toward truly beneficial outcomes.
References
[1] – https://historyfacts.com/us-history/article/7-myths-about-the-wild-west/
[2] – https://www.clazyu.com/blog/7-old-west-myths-debunking-the-legends-of-the-american-frontier/
[3] – https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/wild-west-how-lawless-was-american-frontier/
[4] – https://everything-everywhere.com/how-wild-was-the-wild-west/
[5] – https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/higher-ed-gamma/2024/06/27/westerns-enduring-impact-american-national-identity
[6] – https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2024/04/25/spotting-ai-washing-how-companies-overhype-artificial-intelligence/
[7] – https://ssir.org/articles/entry/ai-media-narratives-workers
[8] – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497225000987
[9] – https://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/ai-regulation-wild-west/
[10] – https://swaay.com/the-wild-west-era-of-ai
[11] – https://business.adobe.com/blog/perspectives/contextual-ai-the-next-frontier-of-artificial-intelligence
[12] – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-022-01548-2
[13] – https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ai-automation-threatens-workers-lessons-from-industrial-revolution-and-david-ricardo-by-daron-acemoglu-and-simon-johnson-2024-04
[14] – https://www.hpcdan.org/reeds_ruminations/2023/10/meditations-on-ai-history-hype-myth-reality-and-futures.html