THE EXPLOSION OF PROGRESS IN ARTIFICIAL intelligence in recent months has surprised even the scientists and engineers who specialize in applying AI to real-world tasks. "A few years ago I never would have imagined we'd advance this far this soon," says Zhe Jiang, a University of Florida researcher who studies industrial applications of AI.
The recent excitement and concerns over this technology were ignited when several major companies released stunningly capable new programs in swift succession, including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Bing, and Google's Bard. These "large language models" are programmed to pore over trillions of words of text from the internet to learn how to produce very human-like text and images on their own in response to plain English questions and requests.
These and other AI tools are expected to have big consequences for the economy and spill over into virtually every sphere of life, from education to entertainment to health. People also will lose their jobs, while others become more productive.
"What AI can do may seem magical now, but soon it's going to seem commonplace," says Rowan Curran, an analyst at research firm Forrester who focuses on AI. "Just as we couldn't have imagined the impact that ridesharing apps like Uber would have on cities and transportation, we're not imagining all the ways that AI will change things."
Nobody can say exactly what changes AI will bring, but experts agree that they'll be big and far-reaching. In the coming years, AI tools are widely expected to change the way most people live and work.
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