GENERATIVE
AI - SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
News:
What is Generative AI,
the technology behind OpenAI's ChatGPT?
What's
in the news?
●
Generative artificial intelligence has
become a buzzword this year, capturing the public’s fancy and sparking a rush
among Microsoft and Alphabet to launch products with the technology they
believe will change the nature of work.
What
is generative AI?
●
Like other forms of artificial
intelligence, generative AI learns how
to take actions from past data. It creates brand new content – a text, an
image, even computer code - based on that training, instead of simply
categorizing or identifying data like other AI.
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The most famous generative AI application
is ChatGPT, a chatbot that Microsoft-backed OpenAI released late last year.
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The AI powering it is known as a large language model because it takes
in a text prompt and from that writes a human-like response.
GPT-4:
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GPT-4, a newer model by OpenAI is “multimodal” because it can perceive not
only text but images as well.
Significance:
●
The businesses
are already putting generative AI to work. The technology is helpful for
creating a first draft of marketing copy, for instance, though it may require
clean up because it isn’t perfect.
○
Example: CarMax Inc, which has used a
version of Open AI’s technology to summarize thousands of customer reviews and
help shoppers decide what used car to buy.
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Day-to-day
digital needs - Generative AI likewise can take notes
during a virtual meeting. It can draft and personalize emails, and it can
create slide presentations.
Concerns:
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There is a concern about the technology’s potential abuse.
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School
systems have fretted about students turning in AI-drafted
essays, undermining the hard work required for them to learn.
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Cybersecurity
researchers have also expressed concern that generative AI could allow bad
actors, even governments, to produce far more disinformation than before.
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At the same time, the technology itself is
prone to making mistakes. Factual
inaccuracies touted confidently by AI, called “hallucinations,” and responses
that seem erratic.