Will AI try to kill us all like in Terminator, or will it just steal our jobs so we can lounge around all day, or will it really improve our lives in all spheres? Is it just ‘hype’ or is AI heading towards the somewhat forgotten metaverse? There are many questions surrounding artificial intelligence, and many more unanswered questions and doubts. But one thing is certain – currently, everyone is somewhat lying about AI, writes Insider.
Generative artificial intelligence and AI-related startups raised nearly $50 billion last year, according to Crunchbase. This included Microsoft’s large funding of OpenAI, as well as large offers for new startups like the French Mistral.
Companies know that investors currently have an appetite for anything related to artificial intelligence and are eager to show how they are integrating new technology into their business – or at least say they are integrating it. The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, recently warned about ‘AI washing‘ or creating a false impression of companies using artificial intelligence to attract investors. While some companies simply exaggerate the technology they legitimately use, others have gone a step further.
In March, the SEC brought charges against two investment advisors who were accused of making ‘false and misleading statements’ about how they use AI. The regulator said that one of the companies, Delphia, claimed to have used AI to ‘predict which companies would invest in them before anyone else’, which was not the case.
The other, Global Predictions, falsely called itself ‘the first regulated financial advisor for artificial intelligence’. The companies agreed to pay a total of $400,000 in civil penalties without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings.
Everyone is up
Analysis by Goldman Sachs revealed that 36 percent of S&P 500 companies mentioned artificial intelligence in their earnings calls in the fourth quarter. Also, in February, ARK Invest released a stunning report predicting that AI will increase total GDP by 130 percent by 2030.
– There is a certain grandiosity in what is being discussed in terms of potential, and I think part of it is that people do not know whether and when some of these things will be realizable. People are very excited, and rightly so in some cases, but these things will not happen overnight – says Scott Kessler, head of the global technology, media, and telecommunications sector at Third Bridge Group.
While some companies are clearly just inserting AI ideas into their existing business, even projects that explicitly deal with developing the next wave of this technology are hitting a stumbling block. Google’s introduction of Gemini was accompanied by controversy as their AI was deemed too ‘woke’ and biased, so it cannot even decide whether, for example, Elon Musk is better or worse than Adolf Hitler. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is no better, having caused a lot of noise but still knowing how to make things up and talk absolute nonsense.
– The release of ChatGPT was a brilliant marketing campaign in some sense. It really worked very well. It completely hypnotized people – said Daron Acemoglu, an economics professor at MIT.
Acemoglu said that there are some ‘pretty impressive achievements’ embedded in ChatGPT, which could be an indication of what is possible, but OpenAI presented the product as beautifully as possible to raise money, attract talent, and compete in a hyper-competitive technology industry.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and a messiah for the artificial intelligence industry, still talks about the technology in a vague, non-specific, and sometimes overstated manner. As technology writer Ed Zitron noted, he said that his children have more AI friends than human friends and that the technology will replace almost everything marketing agencies do. Poor his children. It is not that Altman is dishonest – it is just not super clear what the current capabilities of the technology are, let alone what they might be in the future, so making bold and concrete claims about how it will impact society seems overstated.
Selling fog
However, what is clear is that there is a belief that a lot of money can be made, and over-selling has become almost a constant in the AI landscape. While the semiconductor industry is experiencing a huge amount of demand on the infrastructure side of artificial intelligence, not all companies in the arena are equal. Companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom are big winners, but there are also others ‘who want to be part of the story’, said Angelo Zino, a senior industry analyst at CFRA Research.
Even large tech companies that are genuinely moving in the field of artificial intelligence are sometimes on slippery ground. Tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are reportedly telling sales executives to tone down their presentations when showcasing their generative AI capabilities, The Information reported.
– Just because you put artificial intelligence in your offering does not mean it is actually useful to your customers so that a significant portion of them is willing to pay a lot for it. Take Microsoft’s Copilot, for which the company is currently not providing many details regarding revenue. Many of these companies still do not accurately show what kind of revenue they are getting from artificial intelligence because it is still so small – says Zino.
As for non-tech companies talking about artificial intelligence, it is hard to say exactly what anyone means or what is hope and what is reality. The financial incentives currently offered to AI companies often compel the owners of those companies to exaggerate things a bit because for many companies, the story about artificial intelligence is a story about dollars.
It is really unclear what generative artificial intelligence will ultimately bring. One thing is for sure, any super-optimistic or hyper-pessimistic views are probably not good, which means that the truth will be, as always, somewhere in the middle. However, anyone who says today that they know exactly what is happening with artificial intelligence and where it is all going is probably lying!
