A few times in a generation, a product comes along that catapults a technology from the fluorescent gloom of engineering department basements, the fetid teenage bedrooms of nerds, and the lonely man caves of hobbyists—into something that your great-aunt Edna knows how to use. There were web browsers as early as 1990. But it wasn’t until Netscape Navigator came along in 1994 that most people discovered the internet. There were MP3 players before the iPod debuted in 2001, but they didn’t spark the digital music revolution. There were smartphones before Apple dropped the iPhone in 2007 too—but before the iPhone, there wasn’t an app for that.
On Nov. 30, 2022, artificial intelligence had what might turn out to be its Netscape Navigator moment.
