AI finally comes of age

It’s not really about ChatGPT, but the fact that AI has finally arrived in the mind space of every global citizen. Used to seeing an all-powerful Artificial Intelligence in films and fiction, we finally have an assistant we can use on a regular basis (even if it is on a much smaller scale than Skynet or Ultron).
Now the AI race has finally begun. Siri and Alexa were seen as novelties, but ChatGPT is the start of a new era. Google was founded in 1998 and at one level their search has been static and for some it is even worse than it was a few years back. Now finally they are scrambling to get something to challenge ChatGPT and take their search to the next level.

Bard may not be the answer, but it may be something else from their stable or some other thing from some other company. Every tech player is going to jump onto the bandwagon and accelerate whatever research they are doing in AI.

Why ChatGPT has succeeded and promises to go even further is because it has a personality. Is it a woke teenager? Is it a jealous entity? Is it sentient? Does it want to be human? All these questions have made sure that it is firmly entrenched in the zeitgeist of our times.

OpenAI was quietly formed in 2015. GPT 1,2 and 3 came out and were paid attention by only the techies and experts. But all that has changed. The attention is now on GPT-4 which has set expectations sky high. With Microsoft Bing Edge ChatGPT on one side and Google Search on the other, a Battle Royale is looming in the horizon.

ChatGPT has become the fastest to reach 100 million users in the space of “consumer Internet applications”. Can it maintain this pace? The techceleration that Covid unleashed shows no signs of stopping and could well lead to another multiplier effect.

Elon Musk was one of the founders of OpenAI, though he has shown some disillusionment with the way ChatGPT is shaping up. Bill Gates has invested in OpenAI. Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Sundar Pichai are scrambling to do damage control. You can be sure that Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos are desperate to get their hat into the ring. It’s going to be a tussle between the top geniuses for AI supremacy.

The only problem is that India seems to be way behind. We have made great strides to becoming a digital nation, but when it comes to the absolute “cutting edge”, we are leagues behind and have a lot of catching up to do!