3 Jan 2024

2023 Recap of AI developments

In 2023, the AI landscape saw significant developments with the emergence of Chat and other advanced technologies. Progress accelerated over the past decade with probabilistic programming, big data, and enhanced computational power. Chat, powered by neural networks and large language models, marked a new phase in AI capabilities, enabling tasks such as text drafting and image creation. Diplo’s 2023 recap highlights key digital trends, including advancements in AI, digital geopolitics, cybersecurity, and the future of work, showcasing the ongoing evolution and impact of technological innovations in various sectors.

In the swiftly evolving landscape of the artificial intelegence technology, returning to the incipit of this revolutionary invention’s precise moment of origin is complex. However, in the third decade of the 20th century, the earliest materialisation of such ideas and concepts occurred in literature. Namely, the term ‘robot’, found for the first time in Karel Čapek’s 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), has been representing autonomous humanoid creatures made of artificial matter, and featuring, etymologically speaking, independent and unpaid workforce (from Czech word ‘robota‘ – forced/unpaid labour).

The new concept displaced older words such as ‘automaton’ (from ancient Greek ‘, acting of one’s own will.’) or ‘android’ (human-like machine controlled by a computer) and slowly led to what we nowadays call AI. Starting from Rosenblatt, the father of deep learning, and Turing (the wartime codebreaker at Bletchley Park and founder of computer science), considered the father of AI, the evolution of computer science has been predicted to grow faster and faster through the second half of the 20th century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7DdjAcz5Qo

Video from the 1960s predicting life in the year 2000

Considering the video above and the latest achievements and AI developments, as many scientists and knowledgeable people in the field would say, the advancement is still at a ‘conservative pace’. It is fascinating that assuming the technological development, layman’s predictions of the past century’s early sixties do not fully correspond to exaggerated expectations of technological advancements and fantasies about the future. However, computer science has made remarkable steps in the last decade, especially in the previous few years, with the emerging breakthroughs in AI involving a complex interplay of technical, legal, economic, and societal factors.

The launch of ChatGPT last year was the result of countless AI developments. These developments accelerated in the last 10 years with probabilistic AI, big data, and dramatically increased computational power. Neural networks, machine learning (ML), and large language models (LLMs) set the stage for AI’s latest phase, which brought tools like Siri and Alexa, and, most recently, generative pre-trained transformers, better known as GPTs, which are behind ChatGPT and other latest tools. ChatGPT started mimicking human intelligence by drafting our texts for us, answering questions, and creating images.

Diplo team has prepared an extensive analysis of main developments in 2023. Join us in our comprehensive analysis and delve deeper into trends that shaped the year behind us.