What was your first introduction to AI?
For a lot of it was a robotic in a film.
In 1968 the film “2001: Area Odyssey” by Stanley Kubrick was launched. A Robotic referred to as “HAL” was answerable for a spaceship that rapidly turned dysfunctional and revealed a possible dystopian future for robots and AI.
In 1977 I noticed Star Wars for the primary time and was taken to a brand new world inhabited by bodily robots and different alien creatures.
Our concepts about AI and the way it might reveal itself to the world was usually an imagined bodily pc, robotic or humanoid that did our bidding (if it was effectively behaved).
An outdated tv sequence referred to as the Jetsons (launched in 1962) depicted what a world would appear like in 2062.
It confirmed a futuristic world of video calls and conferencing, robotics and automation, sensible properties, wearable expertise, even drones and aerial transportation.
The Star Wars robotic “R2-D2” was a “droid” that seemed like a small, swiveling, speaking rubbish can. However now we would like a extra human wanting kind.
What we obtained as a substitute seemed lots like a boring immediate field.
ChatGPT gave us easy method to ask questions (a bit like a Google search). Besides now you sort in a immediate and obtain an article, a picture or perhaps a video.
AI immediately is a tad boring and underwhelming. You thought you have been occurring a date with a supermodel and also you ended up with a nerd in a go well with that answered questions.
However once you hearth it up the magic of its superpowers is revealed. It performs duties that may have taken you days, weeks and even months to finish.
The black magic field of AI
We reside in a world of magic. However we frequently take it with no consideration.
We fly in planes at 40,000 toes sipping champagne at a comfy 75 levels the place the skin temperature averages minus 70. We are able to get to the opposite aspect of the world in lower than 24 hours. The Mongols took months simply to journey over just a few international locations and perhaps invade Europe.
You probably have a query about something you’ll be able to pull out your smartphone and the reply is offered in seconds. Pub fights prevented.
We wish to drive to an unknown vacation spot in another country and our GPS powered smartphone exhibits us the way in which. My outdated paper map useful resource was usually turned the other way up and thrown out the window in frustration once I ended up within the ghetto as a substitute of the resort.
We wish to switch cash to the opposite aspect of the planet and it’s despatched with just a few clicks. A go to to a bodily financial institution is now a distant reminiscence.
We order one thing on Amazon and it arrives that afternoon. Who needs to go to a bodily store and discover that what you need is out of inventory whereas the buying assistant chats up their cute colleague and quietly ignores you.
Now we have now a boss that wishes an article or a marketing strategy written and ChatGPT does it with just a few fast prompts and the reply arrives in minutes.
Welcome to the age of the “AI Oracle”. The machines do our bidding.
How does it work?
Behind the AI curtain (you’ll be able to confer with it as Synthetic Intelligence when it’s carrying formal dinner apparel) are three pillars that energy the machines behind the scenes.
Pillar 1: Software program
The primary of our gallant digital period heroes, is the brainchild of the programming languages. It’s the language of geeks (who may as effectively be talking in tongues).
Software program.
It consumes 1.7 trillion parameters with the intelligence and brute drive of the Giant Language Fashions (LLMs).
The extra parameters a mannequin has, the extra advanced and expressive it may be, and the extra knowledge it will probably deal with. The extra knowledge it has the smarter it will get.
That is the place the uncooked logic of AI is cast, from algorithms that study like a toddler on a sugar rush to fashions that predict the long run with the boldness of a seasoned fortune teller.
The query that begs our consideration is…
Who was the primary to unleash the horseman of the AI apocalypse on the world?
It wasn’t good however it beat Google to the beginning line. The search big was afraid of releasing one thing it already had in its instrument field however had an excessive amount of repute to lose by releasing it into the world.
However perhaps by not innovating and releasing AI into the wild it has already misplaced.
The most important participant
ChatGPT was launched by OpenAI in November 2022 and reached 100 million customers in lower than 8 weeks.
It created a easy consumer interface that made AI accessible to the world. A hidden world of algorithms and complexity was lowered to a easy immediate field.
OpenAI made $200 million in 2022. In 2023 it reached $2 billion in income. A development of 1000% in only one 12 months. Its present captital worth is $86 billion.
Pillar 2: {Hardware}
Subsequent we have now {hardware}, the bodily engine of AI’s wants. These aren’t simply any run-of-the-mill circuits and silicon; no, these are the supercomputers, the GPUs (Graphics Processing Models) that crunch numbers sooner than a bored accountant throughout tax season, and the neural community chips that dream of electrical sheep and by no means sleep.
With out these Herculean beasts, our software program could be like a racing driver with out a automotive—dressed for the event however going completely nowhere.
Some {hardware} questions
Who’s the most important participant right here and who’s after their crown?
The designer of excessive finish graphics processing items (GPUs) have been first designed for gaming computer systems.
The most important participant
That is undoubtedly Nvidia. Its rising dominance is clear with a have a look at its gross sales development since 2020.
Extra Nividia numbers:
- The income of Nvidia is up 262% on the 12 months earlier than at simply over $60 billion every year
- It’s now the third Most worthy inventory on this planet with a capital worth of $2.38 trillion simply behind Apple by $238 billion and Microsoft at a market worth of simply over $3 trillion.
Pillar 3: Information
And lastly, “Information”, the lifeblood of AI.
The brand new oil of the AI world.
That is the fodder on which our digital behemoth feeds, grows, and learns. Information is the expertise of AI, every byte a lesson, every terabyte a tome of information.
It’s the world via the eyes of our digital companion, and with out it, AI could be as misplaced as a vacationer with out Google Maps.
The massive query right here?
Who has the information?
And the reply is? Nations and worldwide companies with entry to the information of billions of our planets inhabitants.
Worldwide Companies – Techno states
The social media, software program giants, ecommerce suppliers and knowledge middle corporations are the worldwide gamers which have extra knowledge than many international locations and extra capital worth than 95% of the world’s international locations GDP.
In essence these corporations are larger than international locations in wealth. This has modified since 2021 with Microsoft now over $3 billion in capital worth in 2024.
Who’re they?
- Meta – 4 Billion world customers and counting
- Amazon – 40% of the ecommerce transactions within the USA
- Apple – App retailer and iPhone knowledge
- Microsoft – Hosting and software program gross sales
What number of knowledge factors do the highest techno states acquire?
These corporations perhaps know extra about you than your folks or household. And that makes me somewhat uncomfortable.
- Google collects essentially the most knowledge factors about its clients at 39 per particular person
- Twitter has 24 items of knowledge
- Amazon has 23 Information factors
- Fb collects 14
Nations – Political states
Nations have entry to large quantities of knowledge and the surveillance state is alive and effectively. China has perhaps the biggest gold mine of knowledge because it has change into a surveillance state and can also be the second largest inhabitants on the planet.
Information might be captured in some ways together with monetary knowledge, social media knowledge and visible knowledge. One of many visible applied sciences is CCTV.
Inhabitants dimension lets you acquire extra info and knowledge however it’s essential to have the expertise in place. And a few international locations try this higher than others.
- China – Inhabitants 1.3 billion. China has 200 million CCTV cameras. Meaning they’ve 14 CCTV cameras for each 100 people.
- USA – Inhabitants 400 million. With 50 million CCTV cameras they prime the CCTV listing at 15 cameras per 100 individuals.
- UK – The UK has over 7 million CCTV cameras. They arrive in at a miserly 7.5 cameras per 100 individuals.
Final phrases
Software program brings the brains, {hardware} brings the brawn, and knowledge brings the teachings of a billion lives lived, all to be revealed on the open net.
Human knowledge ready to be harvested.
This knowledge cuts two methods. Firstly, it will probably assist by crunching knowledge for the nice.
This implies issues like higher well being and medical breakthroughs that may save thousands and thousands of lives and permit us to reside longer.
Alternatively, it may also be a weapon used towards us for presidency surveillance, misinformation and digital machine dependancy.
We should be setting up guard rails.
All of us have a alternative in how we wish to play. Consciousness is all the pieces.
Over to you.
