AI era

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"Age of AI" redirects here. For the web series, see The Age of A.I.
Not to be confused with AI boom.

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The AI era,[1][2][3][4][5] also known as the AI revolution,[6][7][8][9] is the ongoing period of global transition of the human economy and society towards post-scarcity economics and post-labor society through automation, enabled by the integration of AI technology in an increasing number of economic sectors and aspects of everyday life.[1][10][11][12][3][13] Many have suggested that this period started around the early 2020s,[14][15][16][17] with the release of generative AI models including large language models such as ChatGPT,[18][19][20] which replicated aspects of human cognition, reasoning, attention, creativity and general intelligence commonly associated with human abilities. This enabled software programs that were capable of replacing or augmenting humans in various domains that traditionally required human reasoning and cognition, such as writing, translation, and computer programming.[21][22]

The AI revolution is widely expected to mark a major turning point in human history, comparable to the invention of the Internet, electricity and the Industrial Revolution,[23][24][25][6] technologies which have impacted virtually every industry and facet of life. It has also been suggested that it may mark a major turning point in the billions of years of history of life and evolution towards the development of artificial life, artificial general intelligence, artificial consciousness and superintelligence,[26][27][7][28] comparable to the Cambrian explosion or the evolution of multicellular life.[29][30]

Prerequisites[edit]

The AI revolution was primarily driven by the convergence of technological advancements, the existence of large datasets, and the availability of advanced and affordable computing power. These factors played a critical role in enabling the development of large AI models, which have significantly advanced the field of artificial intelligence.[7][9]

Advances in algorithmic techniques[edit]

Main article: AI boom
See also: Progress in artificial intelligence

The AI era was catalyzed by key technological developments, including breakthroughs in machine learning algorithms, notably deep learning, which enabled computers to analyze and learn from large datasets with unprecedented efficiency. Key advancements included:

  • Transformer architecture: Enabled the scalability of large-language models with unsupervised learning on large-scale datasets, largely sourced from the Internet, training language models on how to write congruent human-like text, and powering technologies such as ChatGPT.[31]

Large datasets[edit]

The availability of large datasets has been a crucial factor in the AI revolution. These datasets, often sourced from the Internet, provide the vast amount of information needed to train and refine AI models through unsupervised learning. The diversity and size of these datasets have enabled the development of more accurate and robust AI systems, capable of handling complex tasks and making better predictions.[9]

The Internet was largely responsible for this exponential growth in data, creating a primary source of diverse and extensive data, including accessible public databases and user-generated content from social media, online forums, news, and other digital platforms such as Wikipedia.[8]

Advanced and affordable computing power[edit]

The growth of AI has been propelled by significant advancements in computing technology, particularly in the areas of GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) and TPUs (Tensor Processing Units). These specialized processors are capable of handling the complex calculations required for AI algorithms, especially in deep learning.[9]

Societal effects[edit]

Artificial intelligence has had a significant impact on humanity,[22][33][13] including discussions on redefining what it means to be a human during an era in which artificial intelligence surpasses expert-human level abilities in a wide and general variety of skills, potentially leading to a situation where humans may no longer need or be able to work.[34][35][36]

In a 2023 report from ResumeBuilder, more than one-third (37%) of business leaders claimed AI replaced workers in 2023.[37] In 2023, Asana, a project management and collaboration software company, found in a survey that 29% of employees say their work tasks are replaceable with AI.[37] AI systems have already started to replace entire job categories where AIs exhibit super-human abilities such as translation, and writing.

In a study by OpenAI, a leading company in the development of artificial general intelligence and the developer of ChatGPT, conducted a research report that found humans labeled 15 occupations (such as mathematicians, tax preparers, writers & authors, Web and digital interface designers) as fully exposed when combined with GPT-powered software, whereas the GPT-4 model itself labeled 86 occupations as fully exposed.[22]

There have been significant numbers of proponents of a move towards a universal basic income in order to cope with the predicted wide-scale loss of jobs as AI becomes more advanced and capable.[38][39][40][41] With the release of applications like Devin AI there has been growing concerns within the tech industry of job loss. Kyle Shevlin, founder and software engineer at software development agency Athagist, expressed frustration on X about the industry "trying to aggressively replace one of the few remaining jobs that provides a legit middle-class income."[42]

There has been significant concern of potential extinction of humans due to unaligned AI models.[43][44][45] Some examples of concerns include the potential abilities of AI models to create novel pathogens with high infectiousness and mortality that could lead to the collapse of human society.[46]

Physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have expressed concerns about the possibility that AI could develop to the point that humans could not control it, and that this could spell the end of the human race.[47][48]

Future developments[edit]

A number of frontier AI companies including OpenAI, Meta AI and Google DeepMind have stated their primary missions are to develop artificial general intelligence, which is either a type of artificial intelligence that can out-compete humans at most economically valuable tasks, or a type capable of recursive self-improvement, enabling it to learn or program new capabilities that it did not originally have.[49]

OpenAI is working on learning how to align a superintelligence smarter than the humans creating it, a concept referred to as superalignment.[50]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

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  2. ^ Rosenbush, Robert McMillan, Bob Henderson and Steven. "The New Jobs for Humans in the AI Era". WSJ. Retrieved February 8, 2024.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b Marr, Bernard. "Beyond The Hype: What You Really Need To Know About AI In 2023". Forbes. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
  4. ^ "The Era of AI: 2023's Landmark Year". CMSWire.com. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
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  6. ^ a b "How the AI Revolution Will Reshape the World". TIME. September 1, 2023. Retrieved February 21, 2024.
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  13. ^ a b Shapiro, David (August 31, 2023). "What is "Post-Labor Economics"? A Gentle Introduction". Medium. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  14. ^ Lee, Adrienne (January 23, 2024). "UT Designates 2024 'The Year of AI'". UT News. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
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  16. ^ Gent, Edd (December 30, 2022). "2022 Was the Year AI Finally Started Living Up to Its Hype". Singularity Hub. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
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  24. ^ Pringle, Kenneth G. (November 26, 2023). "AI Will Create—and Destroy—Jobs. History Offers a Lesson".
  25. ^ Devlin, Hannah; correspondent, Hannah Devlin Science (May 3, 2023). "AI 'could be as transformative as Industrial Revolution'". The Guardian. London, England. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  26. ^ Walker, Sara (April 27, 2023). "AI Is Life". Noemamag.
  27. ^ Tegmark, Max (August 29, 2017). Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Penguin Books Limited.
  28. ^ "ChatGPT is more like an 'alien intelligence' than a human brain, says futurist". ZDNET. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  29. ^ Dainius (November 24, 2017). "AI is the next phase of human evolution". TNW | Contributors. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  30. ^ West, Tay (October 12, 2023). "The Cambrian Explosion of AI". InvestCloud. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  31. ^ "ChatGPT | What technologies are behind the AI star?". www.aivancity.ai. March 27, 2023. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  32. ^ "Illustrating Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF)". huggingface.co. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  33. ^ Chi, Tzu (August 14, 2020). "The impact of artificial intelligence on human society and bioethics". Tzu Chi Medical Journal. 32 (4): 339–343. doi:10.4103/tcmj.tcmj_71_20. PMC 7605294. PMID 33163378.
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  38. ^ Kelly, Philippa (November 16, 2023). "AI is coming for our jobs! Could universal basic income be the solution?". The Guardian. London, England. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  39. ^ "Is the rise of AI the best argument for universal basic income?". www.wbur.org. September 12, 2023. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  40. ^ Lowrey, Annie (May 17, 2023). "Before AI Takes Over, Make Plans to Give Everyone Money". The Atlantic. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
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  42. ^ Chowdhury, Hasan. "Software engineers are getting closer to finding out if AI really can make them jobless". Business Insider. Retrieved April 7, 2024.
  43. ^ Sharwood, Simon. "Doom developer John Carmack thinks AGI could debut in 2030". www.theregister.com. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  44. ^ Roose, Kevin (December 6, 2023). "Silicon Valley Confronts a Grim New A.I. Metric". The New York Times. New York, New York. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  45. ^ Notopoulos, Katie. "What's your (p)doom? The morbid question making rounds in tech". Business Insider. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  46. ^ "Scientists grapple with risk of artificial intelligence-created pandemics". Science|Business. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  47. ^ Metz, Cade; Schmidt, Gregory (March 29, 2023). "Elon Musk and Others Call for Pause on A.I., Citing 'Profound Risks to Society'". The New York Times. New York, New York. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  48. ^ Kharpal, Arjun (November 6, 2017). "Stephen Hawking says A.I. could be 'worst event in the history of our civilization'". CNBC. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  49. ^ "About". openai.com. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  50. ^ "Introducing Superalignment". openai.com. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
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