9 Stocks to Sell as AI Surges Ahead
I’ve got a surprising fact for you: New technologies are often astonishingly S… L… O… W… to take off. In 1950, there were only 25 million registered vehicles in America, or one for every six people. Though Henry Ford had introduced the Model T more than four decades earlier, many families still saw no reason to buy a car. That’s because, besides “working,” cars — like all new technologies — needed three other ingredients to succeed: Infrastructure. Cars need roads, gas stations and service centers. Culture. People must want to drive. Incentives. Car-friendly regulations need to be in place. In the automobile’s case, the technology required the National Highway System expansion of 1955, suburbanization and a rise of American car culture before it could truly take off. By 1970, there were 118 million cars on the road. By 1990, almost 200 million. The automobile also illustrates how these three ingredients develop in phases. The Official Microsoft Blog calls December 20, 1922, “The Day the Horse Lost Its Job” after New York City’s last horse-drawn fire wagon was replaced with a motorized engine. Streetcar usage declined soon after, when motor cars began clogging up streets. It would take several more decades for railways to eventually succumb; between 1967 and 1972, six major railroads went bankrupt after competition from trucks and other intermodal transport options ate into profits. The same was true for the fax machine, the personal computer and … even the internet. Infrastructure, culture and incentives are built in stages. That’s why Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) “beat” booksellers decades ago, yet still has trouble competing against fresh grocers and big-box stores like Costco (NASDAQ:COST). Today, the same battle is taking shape with artificial intelligence. Some businesses will survive for decades against this new technology. Surgeons, structural engineers and hang-gliding instructors all work with life-or-death situations. So, while AI might enhance the jobs in the near term, it would take significant cultural and regulatory shifts to replace these positions with AI. But other companies are already beginning to struggle. These firms are finding themselves on the wrong side of history… and are failing to mount a counteroffensive. This week, the writers and analysts at InvestorPlace.com consider three categories of firms – and nine stocks among them – that are especially exposed to “losing their job” in these early days of artificial intelligence…
https://investorplace.com/2024/07/9-stocks-to-sell-as-ai-surges-ahead/