Moffat Mungazi
Dr Evans Sagomba
Everything AI
HISTORIANS may look back on November 30, 2022, as a pivotal moment in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
On this date, OpenAI released ChatGPT to the world, marking the beginning of an “AI arms race” where technology companies now compete to develop the most sophisticated models as quickly as possible.
This article delves into the background, history, and benefits of ChatGPT, contextualising its relevance to Zimbabwe.
The Birth of ChatGPT
Before ChatGPT’s release, AI technology was already in widespread use, particularly in academia.
However, the launch of ChatGPT brought AI into the mainstream, making it accessible to a broader audience.
ChatGPT, a generative AI model, is designed to understand and generate human-like text based on the input it receives. This capability has opened up numerous possibilities for its application across various sectors.
In March 2023, just four months after the release of ChatGPT, OpenAI launched GPT-4, a model with dramatically enhanced capabilities. This was followed by the introduction of other advanced models by various companies, including Anthropic’s Claude, Meta’s Llama 2, and Google’s Gemini. The rapid development and release of these models have significantly advanced the field of AI.
The AI Arms Race
The release of ChatGPT sparked an “AI arms race,” with technology companies striving to develop the most advanced generative AI systems. This competition has led to significant investments in AI research and development, resulting in rapid advancements in the technology. While global tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Meta dominate the field, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), startups, researchers, and open-source developers also play a crucial role in the generative AI ecosystem.
The Transformative Power of AI: A Glimpse into the Future
Over the past two decades, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has progressively transformed various fields, showcasing significant advancements and benefits. One notable milestone was achieved by DeepMind’s AlphaGo, which defeated the world champion Go player in 2016. This achievement demonstrated the potential of AI in mastering complex tasks through deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques, marking a significant leap in AI capabilities.
Another ground-breaking development was in the field of protein folding. In 2020, DeepMind’s AlphaFold achieved a breakthrough by predicting protein structures with remarkable accuracy, solving a 50-year-old challenge in biology. This advancement has profound implications for understanding diseases and developing new treatments.
When it comes to generative AI, its capabilities have rapidly expanded beyond mere content creation.
Generative AI models are now adept at a wide array of tasks and can serve as the foundation for developing various specialised AI systems. With rapidly advancing capabilities, they can accomplish increasingly sophisticated tasks. For instance, in December 2023, DeepMind’s AI model solved a previously unsolved mathematical problem. Researchers stated that the accomplishment marked the first instance of a large language model being used to solve a long-standing unsolved mathematical problem. The solution was entirely novel and not present in the training data.
Current generative AI tools can now produce various types of output, such as text, images, computer code, music, videos, or even structure synthesis for 3D printing.
A novel activity known as “prompt engineering” has emerged, involving the optimisation of textual input to enhance communication with a generative AI tool.
Future AI systems may render this unnecessary by becoming more intuitive and proficient in understanding natural language.
In the creative industries, generative AI enhances content creation by generating images, music, and text, allowing artists and writers to experiment with new styles and ideas.
It plays a crucial role in education by creating tailored learning experiences and materials, adapting to the needs of individual students. Businesses may benefit from generative AI through improved customer service, as it powers advanced chatbots and virtual assistants capable of handling complex inquiries.
In the future, generative AI systems will be integrated into myriad products and services and applied in areas such as customer support, artistic creation, image enhancement, research initiatives, coding, and virtual assistants for driving. Generative AI offers the potential to revolutionise multiple sectors — education, entertainment, healthcare, and scientific research — by enabling the creation of customised, scalable content, automating processes, generating hypotheses, and boosting efficiency.
In software development, generative AI accelerates coding by generating code snippets and analysing existing code to suggest optimisations. It also enhances data analysis, producing synthetic data that can be used to train models when real data are scarce or sensitive.
Generative AI supports scientific research by generating hypotheses and simulating experiments, saving time and resources.
In healthcare, it can assist in drug discovery and the development of personalised treatment plans by simulating complex biological processes. Finally, generative AI can aid in the detection and prevention of fraud by generating realistic scenarios that help identify vulnerabilities in security systems.
Some characterise the opportunities offered by generative AI as extraordinary, with the expectation that the technology will lead to significant scientific breakthroughs, economic growth, and profound social transformations.
The most extreme pronouncement of the utopian vision of AI comes from Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimist Manifesto: “We believe technology is liberatory. Liberatory of human potential. Liberatory of the human soul, the human spirit. Expanding what it can mean to be free, fulfilled, and alive. We believe technology opens the space of what it can mean to be human.”
There is no doubt that generative AI offers the potential to revolutionise multiple sectors — education, entertainment, healthcare, and scientific research — by enabling the creation of customised, scalable content, automating processes, generating hypotheses, and boosting efficiency.
In software development, generative AI accelerates coding by generating code snippets and analysing existing code to suggest optimisations.
It also enhances data analysis, producing synthetic data that can be used to train models when real data are scarce or sensitive.
Generative AI supports scientific research by generating hypotheses and simulating experiments, saving time and resources.
In healthcare, it can assist in drug discovery and the development of personalised treatment plans by simulating complex biological processes. Finally, generative AI can aid in the detection and prevention of fraud by generating realistic scenarios that help identify vulnerabilities in security systems.
While AI holds immense potential, it raises important ethical considerations and challenges.
In next week’s article, we will delve into the ethical challenges posed by AI.
Join us every week as we delve together into the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), if you have specific areas that you need to address, please contact the editors or email the author directly ([email protected]) and the issue will be addressed in the following week’s column.
Dr Evans Sagomba, Chartered Marketer/CMktr, FCIM, MPhil, PhD, [email protected], AI, Ethics and Policy Researcher, AI Governance and Policy Consultant, Ethics of War and Peace Research Consultant, Political Philosophy, Chartered Marketer. Social media handles; LinkedIn; @ Dr. Evans Sagomba (MSc Marketing)(FCIM )(MPhil) (PhD), X: @esagomba
