If you believe in the economic and societal theories underlying oligopolies, essentially it is a “bad” thing for consumers when a small set of firms dominate a market, partially due to the lack of abject competition and the lopsided power grab enabled by those companies.

Let’s be clear and agree that this does not imply that there will be only a handful of gigantic companies that serve us all of the myriad types of AI systems that are and will continue to emerge.

Instead, imagine that we are heading toward a sea of AI oligopolies, a veritable cabal of distinct oligopolistic instances, each focused on a particular AI aimed niche.

For example, as will be noted shortly, the emergence of AI-based self-driving cars would appear to be a fast-approaching AI oligopoly, and for which few realize the importance and significance this foreshadows.
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