What the future looks like

AI is evolving at such a rapid pace that it’s hard to imagine what the cutting edge of AI will be in 5 or 10 years and what issues could arise. Research firm Gartner predicts: Through 2026, more than $10 billion will have been invested in AI startups that rely on foundation models (large AI models trained on huge amounts of data).

What this means is we don’t yet know what the outcome of this investment will be. In Sicular’s words, “The overall hype around generative AI is through the roof. I have never seen AI go viral this quickly.”

Gartner believes technologies follow a common pattern called a “Hype Cycle” where after reaching the “peak of inflated expectations”, technologies go through a sort of reality check in the “trough of disillusionment” before emerging in a more realistic “plateau of productivity.”

Therefore, if AI is at the peak of its hype today, what lies ahead is a fair amount of disappointment until people realize what it can and can’t do well.

The NYT says AI will move from just primarily text to getting very good at images, voice, and video. There are already copyright lawsuits from artists and musicians who claim AI is stealing their intellectual property.

Sallam states that the concept of “deepfakes”, taking videos of people and using AI to superimpose someone else on top, including their exact voice, “Has a lot of potential for criminal and illegal activity”

NYT says AI companies: “hope to eventually build what researchers call artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I. — a machine that can do anything the human brain can do.”

It is not yet clear if this means AI will make people more productive or replace workers, but experts believe that AI is most likely to disrupt jobs with repetitive and less creative tasks, including things like tech support. How the future of AI evolves will also depend on cultural issues and how they are perceived. Sicular observes, “In Japan, people love robots, while in the US people associate robots with the Terminator.”

In the end, the future, like always, could happen in any way possible. AI might take over humanity, help it, befriend it, or some other possibility. We’ll just have to wait and see.