Generative artificial intelligence has become widely accepted as a tool that increases productivity. Yet the technology is far from mature. Large language models advance rapidly from one generation to the next, and experts can only speculate how AI will affect the workforce and peoples’ daily lives.

As a materials scientist, I am interested in how materials and the technologies that derive from them affect society. AI is one example of a technology driving global change.

But before AI evolved to its current level, two other technologies exemplified the process created by the demand for specialized materials: cars and smartphones.

Often, the mass adoption of a new invention changes human behavior, which leads to new technologies and infrastructures reliant upon the invention. In turn, these new technologies and infrastructures require new or improved materials.

The unequal distribution of these minerals gives leverage to the nations that produce them. The resulting power shifts strain geopolitical relations and drive the search for new mineral sources. New technology nurtures the mining industry.

The car and suburbs

At the beginning of the 20th century, only five out of 1,000 people owned a car. Then, in 1913, Henry Ford transformed the industry by inventing the assembly line. Now, a middle class family could afford a car.

With cars came more mobility, and many people moved farther away from work. In the 1940s and 1950s, a powerful highway lobby that included oil, automobile and construction interests promoted federal highway and transportation policies, which increased automobile dependence. These policies helped change the landscape: Houses were spaced farther apart, and located farther away from urban centers.

Public policy and investment favored suburbs, which meant less investment in city centers. The resulting decay made living in downtown areas of many cities undesirable and triggered urban renewal projects.

In 1970, the entire frame and body of a car was made from one steel type, but by 2017, 10 different, highly specialized steels constituted a vehicle’s light-weight form. Each steel contains different chemical elements, such as molybdenum and vanadium, which are mined only in a few countries.

While the car supply chain was mostly domestic until the 1970s, the car industry today relies heavily on imports.

The cell phone

The cell phone presents another example of a technology creating a demand for minerals and affecting foreign policy. In 1983, Motorola released the DynaTAC, the first commercial cellular phone. Then in 1996, Motorola introduced the flip phone. In 2007, Apple redefined communication with the iPhone, inventing the touch screen and integrating an internet navigator. Before smartphones, mobile phones supplemented daily life. Now, they structure it.

In 2000, fewer than half of American adults owned a cellphone. In 2024, 98% of Americans over the age of 18 reported owning a cellphone.

Around three quarters of all stable elements are represented in the components of each smartphone. These elements are necessary for highly specialized materials that enable touch screens, displays, batteries, speakers, microphones and cameras.

Critical materials and AI

The mass adoption of AI technology will likely change human behavior and bring forth new technologies, industries and infrastructure. All of these technologies will require more optimized and specialized materials.

By exacerbating material dependencies, AI could affect geopolitical relations and reorganize global power.

America has rich deposits of many important minerals, but extraction of these minerals comes with challenges.

While the path from innovation to material dependence spanned a century for cars and a couple of decades for cell phones, the rapid advancement of large language models suggests that the scale will be measured in years for AI.