...but it has not run its course yet and may not for several years.

Every day, it seems like there is a new application for Artificial Intelligence. Even in process manufacturing industries such as pulp and paper.

On one level, AI will no doubt enhance the science involved in making paper. In real time on the machine.

On another, it will handle the big jobs, like inventory, supply chain, logistics and so forth.

Finally, AI will be taking a lot of confusion and tracking out of maintenance. Maybe we will finally expose the maintenance cheaters.

Throw in ultrasensitive, high-speed cameras and robots. The human element will be significantly reduced.

For decades I have been dreaming that large companies with multiple mill sites will be operated from a centralized control room, perhaps at headquarters. This is coming--rapidly. Humans on the millsite will be reduced to just a few people and most of them will be IT types.

I am not cheering this on; many highly skilled jobs will evaporate. This means our pulp and paper schools will shrink and the graduates ten years from now will have been educated from an entirely different syllabus than exists today.

The future is scary and exciting.

Jim Thompson is CEO of Paperitalo Publications.