How the AI industry forgot two of its best ideas

Technological progress is usually told as a story of accumulation. We imagine each generation inheriting everything the previous one learned and adding something new. Reality is less tidy. Sometimes technologies do not disappear because they failed. They disappear because the surrounding architecture changes, incentives shift, or a newer paradigm captures everyone’s attention. Years later, the industry discovers that something valuable was left behind. Roman concrete offers a useful example. Researchers studying ancient structures have reconstructed techniques that gave the material unusual...