ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: THE FUTURE?
Growing up, my biggest observation about AI was robots or robotics. While watching sci-fi movies and series, Dexter's Laboratory(Peak CN btw), and reading online publications concerning Artificial intelligence and how to build robots, somewhere deep in my heart, I thought of humanity being wiped out by these creations which are self-augmenting entities built by humans who carry actions based on their programming. So this got me thinking….
MACHINERY OF THOUGHT
When it comes to AI, the first thing on anyone's mind is robots. Ask anyone outside the sciences and engineering field and they would most times say AI is referring to robots or conjuring the two concepts together as more or less the same thing, that in itself is a fallacy as Artificial intelligence is too large a field to be boxed under the concept of robotics.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. AI is a field that combines computer science and robust datasets to enable problem-solving. It encompasses sub-fields of machine learning and deep learning. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason and discover meaning.
In the last 10–15 years, there have been notable improvements in algorithms and data availability, and research breakthroughs that support observation, ingestion, analysis, and output. First, the speed of change has significantly accelerated. In some AI fields, comparisons are now being made to Moore’s Law (the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years), with references to “AI performance doubling time” describing the observed performance of AI systems in certain tasks improving at an exponential rate — often exceeding Moore’s Law. For instance, a study at the University of Aberdeen has been measuring the increase in AI system computational power and found that the performance of AI systems during the last ten years has doubled every six months or so (4x what we see with Moore’s Law). As we have evolved, so have the systems and their computational powers.
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THE PRESENT
AI has begun taking its place in modern society with most tech companies now looking to incorporate AI tools into their organizations to make work easier and also to appease the growing requirement from users for more easy and reliable feedback from these tools which would make lives easier. The groundbreaking moment for most users who were not familiar with AI was the introduction of ChatGPT, ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI, designed to respond to text-based queries and generate natural language responses. It is part of the broader field of artificial intelligence known as natural language processing (NLP), which seeks to teach computers to understand and interpret human language.
ChatGPT is built using a deep learning architecture called the Transformer, which enables it to learn patterns in language and generate text that is coherent and human-like. It has been trained on a massive corpus of text data and can therefore generate responses to a wide variety of prompts, from general knowledge questions to more complex conversational topics.
One of the main applications of ChatGPT is chatbots, which it can be used to provide automated customer service, answer FAQs, or even engage in more free-flowing conversations with users. However, it can also be used in other NLP applications such as text summarization, language translation, and content creation. The incorporation of ChatGPT, created the means for the rapid growth of AI tools with Microsoft investing $10 billion dollars into OpenAI(the parent company of ChatGPT and its subsidiaries), Google creating Bard and Meta incorporating LLaMA.
THE FUTURE
With the incorporation of AI tools into the ecosystem, we've begun to discuss the new normal or what we perceive it to be. Given the nature of the current enablement of thought as powered by AI, it seems likely that next-generation AI tools will not just give us the means to diagnose problems more accurately or optimize production processes — this next evolution of technology has the potential for all of us to thoughtfully reimagine what we are capable of and how we achieve any conceived goal. AI can give aspiring artists the ability to create through imaginative thought alone, with no need for years of expensive formal training. Similarly, skilled professionals(doctors, lawyers, chemists, coders, designers, etc.) can use AI to augment and reposition their hard-earned skills in ways that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago. As with the artist, if they can imagine it, AI can help make it a reality. The same applies to someone trying to effect change in their life when they are less skilled. AI can empower any individual with a well-defined vision.
In summary, AI technologies such as ChatGPT, and other groundbreaking tools are catalyzing an unprecedented shift in human innovation and productivity by closing the gap between individual thought and individual manifestation. AI may well be on course to be the future of humanity or maybe its biggest adversity.
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