{"id":7174,"date":"2023-03-15T16:30:37","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T21:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sharpsightlabs.com\/?p=7174"},"modified":"2023-03-15T17:41:01","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T22:41:01","slug":"welcome-to-the-age-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sharpsightlabs.com\/blog\/welcome-to-the-age-of-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Age of AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you’ve been living in a secluded hut on the side of a remote mountain in Nepal, you’ve probably heard major chatter about AI in the last few months.<\/p>\n

First, we had GPT-3 back in late 2022.<\/p>\n

Then, we got AI-generated images with tools like Stable Diffusion.<\/p>\n

Now, just yesterday, OpenAI released GPT-4<\/a>, a multimodal model that can work with both image inputs and text inputs. <\/p>\n

\n“We\u2019ve created GPT-4, the latest milestone in OpenAI\u2019s effort in scaling up deep learning. GPT-4 is a large multimodal model (accepting image and text inputs, emitting text outputs) that, while less capable than humans in many real-world scenarios, exhibits human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks.”<\/p>\n

\u2013 OpenAI\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, it’s very powerful.<\/p>\n

So far on Twitter, I’ve seen examples of GPT-4 doing copywriting, engineering a website from a simple napkin sketch, drug discovery<\/a>, building a game<\/a>, and a variety of other tasks.<\/p>\n

Moreover, according to the press release, GPT-4 ranks well on a variety of academic benchmarks, like college entrance exams and AP tests.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

GPT-4 is “intelligent” and capable in a way that we’ve never seen before from any AI system.<\/p>\n

So although we’ll likely find plenty of problems with the current system …<\/p>\n

And even though there’s still a lot more work to be done on these types of AI systems …<\/p>\n

We’ve almost certainly entered a new era of human history. One that will change politics, economics, science, business, and most of our institutions.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the Age of AI.<\/p>\n

A New Era of History<\/h2>\n

I want to avoid playing into the hype too much, but, I suspect that we really are entering a new era: an era that’s marked by the use of AI and dominated by those who wield it.<\/p>\n

The obvious analogy is the Industrial Revolution.<\/p>\n

Before the Industrial Revolution, most physical goods were created by hand by skilled artisans wielding hand tools. Most cities were small and many people lived in small villages. Physical power was mostly generated by humans or domesticated animals.<\/p>\n

And then, it all changed. <\/p>\n

Over a few decades, innovations like the steam engine and the factory, along with advances in energy production and material science fundamentally changed the world.<\/p>\n

According to one book on the Industrial Revolution<\/a>, output per worker doubled within 80 years, from 1770 to 1850.<\/p>\n

Standards of living increased.<\/p>\n

People changed how they lived and worked (for example, urbanization).<\/p>\n

And also, new problems emerged.<\/p>\n

It was a fundamental shift that impacted work, economics, consumption, demographics, politics, and more.<\/p>\n

The introduction of “intelligent” systems is likely to produce a shift similar in size and scope as the Industrial Revolution.<\/p>\n

We’re in for some very big changes.<\/p>\n

A Few Features of the Age of AI<\/h2>\n

Let’s talk about where things are likely to go from here.<\/p>\n

Now, to be clear, the list of things that I’m about to discuss is limited. I’m personally interested in how AI will change the nature of work and how it will change the Tech industry.<\/p>\n

And since this is a data science blog, I’m interested in how it will change data science work, in particular.<\/p>\n

Additionally, most of the things I’m about to say are things that I have modest<\/em> confidence in. Meaning: I think that they might<\/em> be accurate and might come to pass, but there’s a probability that they might not. Things are changing fast, so I reserve the right to change my mind on these things as this technology matures. <\/p>\n

How AI will Change Data Science and the Tech Industry<\/h2>\n

Here are a few predictions I’ll make about the impact of AI over the next few years.<\/p>\n