What: AI is poised to radically transform many aspects of our lives.

Why it is important: It is not just about using AI to earn productivity points, but also to understand and anticipate how customers will react and use AI, to be able to cater for their needs in a new way… if they have not lost their jobs and income due to this new technology!

In 2012, researchers Alex Krizhevsky, Ilya Sutskever and Geoffrey Hinton developed the "AlexNet" system that used machine learning to accurately recognize objects in images, winning an annual competition called ImageNet. This breakthrough sparked a race in the tech industry to bring AI into mainstream use. Since then, machine learning has been widely used in various industries, including identifying credit card fraud and making online content and advertising more relevant.

Recently, the introduction of "generative" AI systems such as ChatGPT and GPT-3 has brought AI into the public consciousness as these systems can produce content to order. ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, is simple to use and can instantly produce results that look like they were written by a human. Microsoft's investment in OpenAI confirms the technology's central role in the next phase of the AI revolution. These breakthroughs have sparked a search for new applications for the technology, including video and music generation, suggesting new lines of code to software developers, and even generating ideas for new drugs. Eric Boyd, head of AI platforms at Microsoft, states that these models will change the way people interact with computers and will become a foundational technology touching almost everything.

However, the technology also has the potential to generate large volumes of misinformation and automate away many jobs.

Generative AI, a type of machine learning that produces new content, has the potential to disrupt the tech landscape, but also presents challenges for companies and people who will come across it in their work or personal lives.

One main challenge is the reliability problem, as it is impossible to completely trust anything the AI produces. There have already been demonstrations of the technology producing believable but untrustworthy results. Some solutions include submitting the results of generative systems to a sense check before they are released, but this also throws up problems as it relies on humans to validate the output of the AI. Some experts argue for limiting access to the underlying technology, while others advocate for spreading the technology as widely as possible. Microsoft provides its customers with tools to scan the output of the AI systems for offensive content. Some technology can also help to control misuse of the new AI systems, such as Google's language system that can detect with 99% accuracy when speech has been produced synthetically.

The rise of generative AI has also raised questions about its impact on jobs, with some arguing that it will replace workers while others argue it will make them more productive.

Jobs that involve design or writing are particularly at risk. Tech companies are trying to apply the technology to advertising, which could threaten the livelihoods of content creators. Some believe the technology could amplify human creativity, while others argue that it is taking away the human element of creation. The copyright system may play an important role in determining the use of AI in training systems. Getty Images and three artists have started legal proceedings against AI companies for the use of copyrighted images. The battle over data in training AI could become as important as the patent wars at the dawn of the smartphone era. The courts will ultimately set the terms for the new era of AI.

How will AI affect individuals?