The Beginning of an Era

Many say that the biggest factor in getting AI into the common American (and international) home was ChatGPT, released by OpenAI in late November, 2022. ChatGPT blew the world away with its phenomenal ability to write and engage in conversations – as well as by scaring many with how difficult it is to distinguish between writing done by AI versus a person. ChatGPT was unavoidable; whether you liked AI or hated it, everyone now knew about AI, was interested in it to some extent, and likely tried it out at least once or twice. 

ChatBots, Image Generators, and Misinformation

It was 2023, however, that was a breakthrough year for Artificial Intelligence. First off, the success of ChatGPT, especially as it grew at an extremely rapid pace at the start of 2023, scared many competitors. Though ChatGPT left many companies scrambling to make an AI ChatBot of their own, the two most notable were Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing. Both platforms had a rough start and people quickly began to point out their many flaws. Bard and Bing were both, according to many people, underdeveloped when released. This caused them to be prone to giving incorrect responses to questions – both basic and complex. While its tendency to not give infactual information was just about where the controversy ended for Bard, Bing had a lot more. Bing was shown to not only give misinformation but also quickly proved itself to be quite unhinged. The platform would argue with its users, tell outlandish stories, and even said that it wanted to be human. These platforms very quickly proved to be dangerous in their tendency to spread misinformation. 

A bizarre conversation one user had with Bing

AI ChatBots proved to be big spreaders of misleading information, they weren’t the only ones. AI generated images gained popularity. The ones that really caught the attention of the public were images of celebrities – ones that gathered bewildering amounts of likes and comments on social media. All kinds of celebrities got fake images spread online, but the most notable was Pope Francis. Since the head of the Catholic Church for ten years is known around the world, people were intrigued by the odd photos of him that circulated the internet. The scariest part is that most did not know that they were fake. Unfortunately, the generally harmless images of Pope Francis weren’t the only ones that got attention. Loads of photos involved former president Donald Trump and addressed very sensitive topics. AI generated images showed themselves to be just as able to spread misinformation as their ChatBot counterparts. 

An AI generated image of Pope Francis that went viral on Social Media

Meanwhile, throughout the entire year of 2023, ChatGPT quickly became an issue in the education industry. Remember how hard it is to distinguish between human and AI written text? Well, students caught on to that pretty quickly. Many saw it as an easy opportunity to get out of work or get a 4.0 GPA. Teachers became aware of this too, though many were at a loss when it came to doing something about it. Of course, there are AI plagiarism checkers. The issue? AI had already proved its inclination towards being wrong. This meant that some teachers let it slide – and that others got overly paranoid and would flunk entire classes without any evidence that their work was made by AI. 

Microsoft Copilot

After Microsoft’s lackluster attempt at AI with Bing, they continued to develop and came out with Copilot. Copilot was, unlike many widespread AI’s, not a simple ChatBot but was instead an incorporation of AI into the everyday. Microsoft integrated Copilot into many of its products as a digital assistant and showed itself not only to be extremely invested in AI but also showed its dominance compared to Apple. 

Increased Fear 

By March, many prominent figures in the Tech world had begun to voice their concerns about the rapid development of AI. These leaders urged AI companies to slow down and allow society to adjust and assess risks. These urges caused the public to get even more fearful of AI, though it didn’t seem to affect AI companies very much. 

One of the most notable events of the year was when Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (ChatGPT owners), was suddenly fired. The board of OpenAI was worried that Altman was prioritizing growth over safety. However, the company received a huge amount of backlash from just about everyone else in the company. Altman was quickly reinstated. The whole thing was carefully watched by the public. It opened up a lot of questions about what OpenAI had already been able to develop – and why it had scared the board so much. 

AI’s Affect on the Workplace

AI slowly but surely became more prominent in Hollywood. Reports claimed that 300 million jobs could be destroyed at the rate at which it was going. In response to this, many Hollywood writers went on strike. This strike was caused by their fear of being replaced by AI. The strike went on for nearly half a year, spanning from May to September. Eventually, studios made agreements with the strikers that said that they would limit the use of AI. To learn more about the strikes, click here. 

On the entire other side of this conversation, many workplaces have banned (or at least discouraged) the use of AI at work. There are many reasons for this. Some of the most common ones involve safety and security. 

Conclusion

2023 was a big year for AI. Advancements have opened up doors for millions of opportunities – and sparked controversy worldwide. AI companies also proved themselves to be extremely dedicated, even though not all things work out on the first try. 2023 is clearly just the beginning for years of development and innovation to come. We can only wait to see how AI continues to change the world – and hope that those changes are for the better, not worse. 

Cites

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai-in-2023-generative-ais-breakout-year

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/biggest-ai-events-in-2023/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-google-bard-heres-everything-you-need-to-know/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/technology/ai-photos-pope-francis.html

https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-google-bard-heres-everything-you-need-to-know/

https://mashable.com/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-chatbot-what-not-to-share

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/briefing/open-ai-sam-altman-microsoft.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/briefing/ai-dominance.html

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/chatgpt-bing-hands-on/ 

https://www.udacity.com/course/ai-artificial-intelligence-nanodegree–nd898