Stating the Obvious

This was the year AI, or artificial intelligence, went mainstream. AI, an umbrella term for any form of technology that can perform “intelligent” tasks, has mostly been used to find patterns in huge data sets. But a boom in generative AI — which uses this pattern-matching to create words, images and sounds — has opened up new possibilities and scams. Economists took note. Companies have always turned to robots to reduce wages, reportedly even the animatronic band at Chuck E. Cheese. AI is used in many forms, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has already cost some humans their jobs, and Dall-E, which has made images on the internet even less trustworthy. Speaking of jobs, Sam Altman’s dramatic dismissal as OpenAI CEO last week underscored the deep philosophical divisions in the AI world. Microsoft immediately hired him.