The tech community is going crazy over ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) these days. As the San Fransisco-based OpenAI launched this LLM-based GPT-3 (Now GPT-4) chatbot on 30-Nov-2022, it took the tech world by storm with its ability to interact, understand the context and answer our questions to a reasonable extent. This was well beyond what we have been expecting from AI. It showed the world that machines can learn and respond accordingly. It broke all the records of subscribing to it (over a million within 5 days since its launch) when everyone wanted to use it and utilize its power. From writing a poem to writing codes, it has shown its great capabilities. Multiple LLM-based AI power tools continue to surface all around the world and the AI rat race has begun.
AI Economy
OpenAI is currently valued at over $30 billion and Microsoft has shown keen interest and got into a long-term partnership with a multibillion-dollar investment to fuel the research and development of AI. This fuelled the interest in AI, especially Generative AI. As per a Forbes article, the global AI market in 2022 was $136 billion and it is poised to grow with an astounding Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 37.3% from 2023 to 2030 and reach $1181 billion by 2030. Globally, AI is expected to contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030 surpassing the current output of India and China Combined.
Indian AI market has reached $680 million in 2022 and is expected to reach $2935 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 33% (not very far from the global CAGR).
The Impact
McKinsey’s Technology Trends Outlook 2023 report shows the new entrant Generative AI has the potential to outplace other 14 consistent technology trends. While Applied AI continues to be at the top in terms of quantitive measures of interest, innovation and investment with all the parameters (Talent demand, News, Searches, Research, Patents, Equity Investment), Generative AI and other foundational models have strong potential to change the game by introducing AI-based capabilities like software development, complex analytics, summarization etc to non-technical users. Industrializing AI is not very far.
While everyone is going crazy over AI/Generative AI, we should not overlook the possible impact it will bring to our life in the short-term and long-term future.
Impact on the Jobs
The world is craving for the potential of AI helping humans where AI is expected to help humans on mundane and monotonous jobs. As per McKinsey’s report, 15% of the global workforce in multiple industries may lose their job to AI. Six out of ten occupations have 30% tasks that can be automated and AI is supposed to take them over including the most common predictable conversations (ChatBots).
Our current workspaces consist of various levels of performers. While top contributors are expected to adapt to the growing needs of people who can utilize AI to get things done, the lower and mediocre workforce will be in great danger of losing their jobs to AI. The current system still has a place for them in different organizations. However, when AI starts to get industrialized, these non-performers (average contributors) are supposed to be impacted. This will have serious repercussions on the workforce demand and supply ecosystem. As per a 2021 BCG study on “Future of Job in the Era of AI”, the entry of the workforce through graduates from the education system or net migration/switch from another job will seriously lack AI skills. This can mean that the workforce demand will not be met and over-dependence on AI will increase to cover that gap. The study suggests the role of humans will contract in the economy due to automation and AI.
While AI is expected to also generate some jobs, they are going to be more complex and need deep skills. Understanding the true future is beyond the scope of this article as multiple unknown parameters are expected to show up as we progress on our journey with AI. Building an adaptive workforce is going to be the more important thing to focus on for all organizations.
Impact on the Environment
A recent article in Wall Street Journal raised the question of whether the Cloud Service Provides (CSP) are ready to support the ever-increasing AI for business, research and other purpose. Tradition cloud infrastructure is not able to support the industrialization of AI as yet. CSPs are working on creating the dedicated infrastructure that is needed for AI. The demand for the infrastructure to train the models like LLM will need 10 to 100 times bigger infrastructure than what is currently needed for existing AI models. Infrastructure will need more GPUs or specialized chips than the existing CPU-based cloud infrastructure. This means more data centres will come up soon to meet these demands.
Machine learning like any other complex computing process needs more energy. This means that this is going to have a severe impact on our environment as this is going to increase carbon emissions by many folds. The cost of training one AI model using a single high-end graphics card (or GPU) generates the carbon equivalent of a flight across the United States. The 2019 MIT Technology Review pointed out that the training of a different AI model was estimated to pump as much as 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air — roughly five times the emissions created by one car in America during its entire lifecycle, from manufacture to the end of life of the car.
This points to the profound impact on our environment that AI adaptation can have with its increasing carbon emissions. The Net-Zero and ESG initiatives are going to be easily defeated with the adaptation of AI for all businesses.
The race between Human intelligence vs Artificial intelligence
Very soon we are going to witness the rise of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) with the ways AI is progressing. The work that currently can be done with 100 skilled software engineers can be done in no time with one super-intelligent AI. The moment artificial general intelligence gets created, it will have all the capabilities to modify itself without the help of humans. In 2017 Facebook has to shut down its experimental project when the AI Bots developed their own language to communicate with each other. In the same year, Google revealed a similar incident where AI that they were using in the Translate tool created its own language. The project was continued as Google was happy with it. With these indicators where artificial intelligence can rise above us, we have to soon think if we want to avoid a day when we have to repent saying “My own machine is not obeying me”.
I also want to touch on another aspect of the current trend of dependence on AI that will very soon become overdependence on AI. We want to use AI to write an essay, write a summary of a big article, perform a comparative analysis of two annual reports and many other exciting things. however, since the ancient era, human intelligence has evolved and has always reached a newer level by utilising its own intelligence to do these complex analyses. The rigorous use of the human brain has helped humans to come this far and remain superior among all the sapience that ever existed. We have been creative to write, draw, play, invent, discover, and have done many other things as these have been our traits. Now we want to depend on AI to do these saying we want to do something that we have not done till now. Do we really know what we want to do with our human intelligence?
Final thought
In the age where we have confined ourselves within our own homes. When we have confined ourselves to a small screen abandoning the law of nature where humans were supposed to be a social animal than a sole survivors. When a new trend of finding solace among an artificial human is gaining momentum…leaving our own intelligence can have a catastrophic effect on our future.
While the impact on human life and livelihood that AI is going to have is quite obvious, we will continue to be in a dilemma about whether we should slow down with this bandwagon and rethink multiple aspects of our future. In recent times, more than 1000 AI experts and researchers urged with an open letter for a pause until the world can be confident and conscious that ‘the effect of AI will be positive and risk will be manageable’.
Careful consideration from thought leaders, lawmakers and even large businesses is required than unthoughtful progress that is being currently pursued.
Important Disclaimers:
> The opinions stated here are my own, not necessarily those of past, current, or future employers. and I have not taken any incentives to mention them.
> The mentioning of books, tools, websites, and/or products/services are not formal endorsements and I have not taken any incentives to mention them.
> Recommendations are based on past experiences and not a reflection of future ones.
> Artificial Intelligence is a rapidly developing space and therefore any recommendations, opinions, or examples are based on present knowledge and are subject to change.
> I do not recommend putting any sensitive information into publicly accessible AI tools and you should consult your organisation’s policy on the use of these tools.