ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

When we think of artificial intelligence (AI), the popular imagination often conjures up images of futuristic, human-like sentient robots fulfilling menial duties humans once did. While this vision isn’t a million miles from reality, it is only a small element of modern AI, a subset if you will.

The AI that’s become the most prominent in 2023 isn’t such much the human clone or the robot, but the computer-based chatbot. Most famous in this regard is ChatGPT, an app out of the USA that provides insights into any question you can ask, as well as having the ability to think, calculate and even write essays and news pieces of its own, which could mean great trouble for editors and writers out there (eek!).

The prevalence of ChatGPT promises a revolution in working practices, with automated systems now having the power to offer business much cheaper (and arguably more accurate) copy. However, even ChatGPT creator and chief Sam Altman, warned the US Senate words of warning for the technology that he helped become mainstream.

Altman, who co-founded OpenAI (the mother company of ChatGPT) in 2015 with financial backing from Elon Musk, warned that if artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology go wrong, “it can go quite wrong”. Altman said: “OpenAI was founded on the belief that artificial intelligence has the potential to improve nearly every aspect of our lives, but also that it creates serious risks… We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models”.

These words are rather sage given our world runs the risk of developing slower than the technology we create.

The artificial intelligence market has been on a swift growth path for several years – so much so that the industry is expected to reach US$42.4 billion in 2023. This momentum will continue, and we’re starting to realize it with the debut of powerful new AI-powered tools and services across industries.

Most recently, there has been a shift from the well-understood role of AI in analysis and prediction – helping data scientists and enterprises make sense of the world and chart their courses accordingly – to new and innovative systems, like DALL-E, that are producing entirely new artifacts that have never been seen before.

With the AI world very much democratised (meaning anyone can use open-source software to make advancements of their own – even AI itself), the future looks full of a heady blend of massive potential, but also massive risk. This is why global governments and regions will soon be looking for a code of ethics under which AI can operate.