AI evolving fast. What's next

Despite having a short history, computers and artificial intelligence (AI) have significantly altered the way we see, understand, and act. How this history is continued will have a significant impact on both the future of the globe and our own lives.

Birth of AI:

Early pioneers of AI, such as Alan Turing and John von Neumann were known for his work on the Turing test, a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Von Neumann is best known for his work on the von Neumann architecture, which is the basis for most modern computers.

The article then discusses the development of AI in the 1950s and 1960s. During this time, there was a great deal of optimism about the potential of AI, and many scientists believed that it would be possible to create intelligent machines within a few decades. However, this optimism was not sustained, and AI research went into a period of decline in the 1970s and 1980s.

The resurgence of AI in the started in 1990s and 2000s. This resurgence was due in part to the development of new machine learning algorithms, such as support vector machines and deep learning. These algorithms have enabled AI systems to achieve state-of-the-art results on a wide range of tasks, including image recognition, natural language processing, and machine translation. The language and image recognition capabilities of AI systems have developed very rapidly.

The article concludes by discussing the future of AI. The author argues that AI is likely to continue to grow and develop in the coming years, and that it will have a major impact on all aspects of our lives.

I think the article is a well-written and informative overview of the history of AI. It is clear that AI has come a long way in a relatively short period of time, and that it has the potential to revolutionise many industries and aspects of our lives.

From image recognition to image generation

The previous graph demonstrated the quick development of artificial intelligence's perceptual capabilities. AI systems can now produce images with a lot more ease.

This nine-image collection demonstrates the evolution over the past nine years. All of the individuals in these pictures are artificially created; none of them are real.

The series starts with a picture from 2014 in the upper left corner, a crude black-and-white depiction of a pixelated face. Just three years later, AI systems were already capable of producing images that were difficult to distinguish from photographs, as the first image in the second row demonstrates.

The capacity of AI systems has increased dramatically in recent years. These more recent models have expanded their ability to text-to-image synthesis based on virtually any prompt, whereas earlier systems were mostly focused on producing images of faces. The illustration in the lower right corner demonstrates that even the trickiest suggestions, such "A Pomeranian is seated on the King's throne wearing a crown. In a matter of seconds, the words "Two tiger soldiers are standing next to the throne" are transformed into photorealistic pictures.

Language recognition and production is developing fast

The rapid advancement of AI systems that can generate images is as impressive as the development of AIs that can understand and react to human language.

Examples from Google's PaLM AI system are displayed in the picture. The machine was tasked with deciphering six different jokes in these six cases. The explanation in the bottom right, which the AI uses to explain an anti-joke that is intended to confound the listener, strikes me as being especially amazing.

Over the past few years, a variety of approaches for AIs to manufacture language have entered our society. Emails are auto-completed, vast volumes of internet material are automatically translated, films are automatically transcribed, schoolchildren utilise language models to finish their homework, reports are made automatically, and media organisations broadcast news produced by AI.

AI systems are not yet able to produce long, coherent texts. In the future, we will see whether the recent developments will slow down – or even end – or whether we will one day read a bestselling novel written by an AI.

Present: AI is here to Stay

Using machines in a variety of new sectors has become viable thanks to these quick advancements in AI capabilities:

When you book a flight, the price is frequently determined by artificial intelligence rather than a human. When you arrive at the airport, an AI system keeps track of your activities there. Once you're in the air, an AI system helps the pilot navigate the aircraft to its goal.

Additionally, AI algorithms are being used to decide whether you are approved for a loan, qualify for welfare, or are employed for a specific position. They increasingly have a role in deciding who is let out of prison.

Many governments are investing in autonomous weapons systems for conflict, while some are employing AI systems for repression and monitoring.

AI systems assist in translating the articles you read and programming the software you use. Over the past ten years, speech-recognition-based virtual assistants have become commonplace in many homes. Autonomous vehicles are becoming a reality.

The previous few years have seen advancements on some of science's most challenging problems thanks to AI systems.

What you see on social media, the things that are displayed to you in online stores, and the YouTube recommendations are all determined by large AIs known as recommender systems. They are increasingly not only recommending the media we watch or read, but also producing it thanks to their ability to produce visuals and texts.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a technology of the future; it already exists, and many aspects of modern reality were formerly considered science fiction. The applications on the above list are just a handful of the many ways this technology already has an impact on all of us.

The wide range of listed applications makes clear that this is a very general technology that can be used by people for some extremely good goals – and some extraordinarily bad ones, too. For such ‘dual use technologies’, it is important that all of us develop an understanding of what is happening and how we want the technology to be used.

Just two decades ago the world was very different. What might AI technology be capable of in the future?

FUTURE: The way Forward !!!!!

Here are some additional thoughts on the future of AI:

• AI is likely to become more pervasive in our lives. AI systems are already being used in a wide range of applications, from smartphones to self-driving cars. In the future, AI is likely to be used in even more applications, such as healthcare, education, and manufacturing.
• AI is likely to become more powerful. AI systems are becoming increasingly powerful, and they are able to learn and adapt to new information at an unprecedented rate. In the future, AI systems are likely to become even more powerful and capable.
• AI is likely to have a major impact on the economy. AI is expected to boost productivity and create new jobs, but it could also lead to job displacement in some sectors. The overall impact of AI on the economy is likely to be positive, but it is important to mitigate the negative impacts on workers who are displaced by AI.
• The fast doubling times have accrued to large increases. PaLM’s training computation was 2.5 billion petaFLOP, more than 5 million times larger than that of AlexNet, the AI with the largest training computation just 10 years earlier.

Ajeya Cotra, an AI researcher, published one of these studies that has arguably received the most attention. She looked at the rise in training computation to determine when training computation for AI systems would catch up to that of the human brain. The notion is that at this stage, an AI system would have capabilities comparable to those of the human brain. According to Cotra's most recent assessment, there is a 50% chance that such "transformative AI" will be created by the year 2040, which is less than two decades from now.

Overall, the future of AI is bright. AI has the potential to solve many of the world's most pressing problems and to improve the lives of billions of people. However, it is important to develop and use AI in a responsible and ethical manner. We need to ensure that AI is used for good, and that it does not harm individuals or society.

Cotra’s work is particularly relevant in this context as she based her forecast on the kind of historical long-run trend of training computation that we just studied. But it is worth noting that other forecasters who rely on different considerations arrive at broadly similar conclusions. As I show in my article on AI timelines, many AI experts believe that there is a real chance that human-level artificial intelligence will be developed within the next decades, and some believe that it will exist much sooner.

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Disclaimer: All views expressed in this article are my own and do not represent the opinions or views of my current employer or any entity whatsoever with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated. This post is for?informational purposes only and any advice should be followed at the reader's own discretion.

?2023 by Mrinmoy Paul

Source: https://ourworldindata.org