Future Beat: AI's methodical ascent

What would you do if the internet stopped working for a long period of time?

That's a question nobody likes to ponder for the most part because, let's face it, the technology is an integral part of our lives.

Another invention that we are told is fast becoming an integral part of our daily lives is artificial intelligence.

This week, however, for reasons that still aren't entirely clear, major AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity all stopped working briefly.

Yet you would be forgiven if you didn't know that the outage occurred. Why?

Because despite all the hype, much of it deserved, AI still hasn't reached the upper echelons of consumer technology importance.

That's not to say it won't reach that level of prominence, but it's definitely still in ascent mode.

Cody Sigel Combs , Future Editor

The Big Story

AI graduates

In brief | As AI developments, investments and business deals begin to reach a crescendo around the world, the 2024 class of Abu Dhabi's Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first dedicated artificial intelligence university, graduated.

A total of 101 graduates representing 22 nationalities received diplomas and walked across the stage at the Abu Dhabi Energy Centre on Thursday.

According to MBZUAI, Emiratis make up 24 per cent of those graduating, and the 2024 cohort is the university’s most diverse since its founding.

This graduating class also includes MBZUAI’s first PhD graduates.

Why it matters | Institutions of higher learning have a unique dual benefit in that they prepare students for the future, while at the same time attracting seasoned professionals who can enrich the lives of both students and the institutions for which they work.

Proving that concept would be Prof Elizabeth Churchill, who most recently served as senior director of user experience at Google, and previously worked at eBay and Yahoo. She has long been considered a leading expert in human-computer interaction, AI and psychology, and now Prof Churchill will be bringing her talents to MBZUAI.

It's also easy to forget that back in 2019 when it was first announced, MBZUAI was the first university dedicated to AI. That sort of gravitas inevitably enhances cooperation with entities around the globe, as is the case with MBZUAI and two top French universities working on setting up a dual education programme.

Quoted | “You’ve chosen one of the most exciting disciplines in science, and one of the greatest catalysts in human development. You don’t just have a front row seat to history, you will play a primary role in shaping it"

– Dr Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, and chairman of the board of trustees of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence

Future in focus

Building momentum | EV maker Lucid opens first UAE retail showroom amid Middle East push

Turn off the internet | Some countries are going to extreme lengths to preventing cheating in exams

Opinion | Al and climate change – friends or foes? Ian Chew explores both the challenges and opportunities

?? Back to the future | Do you remember life before social media? ??

Predicting the future: Signal or noise?

Despite his attempts to ban TikTok in 2020 when he served as US President, this week Donald Trump officially joined the video-based social media platform. As of the writing of this newsletter, Mr Trump has 4.8 million followers. By any objective standard, that's a lot of followers in a short period of time. While incumbent US President Joe Biden doesn't have a Twitter account, his re-election campaign does, yet the follower count pales in comparison to Mr Trump, with just 353,000 TikTok users. Does Donald Trump's significant lead in the race for TikTok followers mean that President Biden will only be serving one term in the White House?

This is noise: While social media should not be overlooked as a potential factor impacting voter decisions, it also shouldn't be given too much weight. During the 2020 US presidential campaign, let's not forget that Mr Trump had significantly more followers on X (formerly Twitter) than Mr Biden, yet Mr Trump was still defeated at the ballot box. Simply put, despite being a multi-billion dollar industry, there are still a lot of people out there, voters in particular, who don't spend a lot of time on social media platforms.

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