Generative artificial intelligence has captured the attention—and the headlines—about technology in 2023. No other system in the fifth industrial revolution has been able to compete with an innovation that has generated more questions than answers, more concern than peace of mind. Meanwhile, the blockchain or the metaverse, supposed successes in this environment, have been languishing.
The global success of ChatGPT, from the Open AI firm, is largely indebted to the work of figures such as Ian J. Googfellow. And even the remote contributions of references such as Alan Turing or John McCarthy. And even the hidden models of Andréi Márkow or the Gaussian mixture. However, observers’ interest is focused on the future, not the past.
Technicians at the consulting firm Gartner have found out that more than 80% of companies will use generative artificial intelligence in 2026. Be that as it may, one of the founders of the company iRobot, Rodney Brooks, has already warned the most enthusiastic of the dangers of overvaluing the capabilities of this invention without a minimum critical spirit.
He, an authoritative voice since he was once director of the Computer Science Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), sums it up this way: “No technology has ever surpassed all the others.” ”. On the other hand, his successor at MIT, Daniel Rus, currently the head of the organization that Brooks headed some time ago, believes that these programs have erased the distinction between reality and (science) fiction.
As he stated in a symposium held at his university at the end of November 2023, generative artificial intelligence is “a source of hope and a force for good.” A good inspiration for digital evangelists. The ethical debate is difficult to navigate, but the threat of an avalanche of misinformation is real, as Microland Limited boss Pradeep Kar recalls.
Since April 2023, major nations are regulating this field. This is what is happening in China, Japan, the United States and the European Union. Like many other analysts, Kar clarifies that haste often prevails over wisdom. The only thing certain, he adds, is that generative artificial intelligence “can only stabilize when data runs out and available talent can’t keep up.”