Generative AI is the breakout technology trend of 2023, and its ability to create seemingly human-like content has captured the attention of mainstream audiences as well as technologists and futurists.
Big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta are pouring apparently limitless resources into technology, and we can expect to see similarly groundbreaking innovations in 2024.
Generative AI is an incredibly powerful tool that will play a key role in democratizing access to the transformative potential of AI. And I think everyone needs to be aware of what’s coming, to carefully consider the impact it will have on our lives.
So here’s an overview of what we expect to be the key themes, covering new technological breakthroughs and social issues we’ll likely encounter.
Bigger, more powerful model
Generative AI applications are very good because they are trained on huge datasets. GPT-4, the engine behind ChatGPT, is said to be trained with over 1 trillion parameters. Other large-scale language models (LLMs), such as Google’s PaLM2 and DeepMind’s Gopher, are trained with hundreds of billions of parameters. Rumors are growing that GPT-5 may be on the way soon, and we should expect another big advance in terms of size. Increasing dataset size is not the only way to make LLM smarter, but so far it has been shown to be the most reliable way to generate improvements. For this reason, I expect to see an increase in the development of new generative AI models as we head into 2024.
election interference
In 2024, many countries will hold leadership elections, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. I am convinced that generative AI will be used to spread misinformation. disrupt the political process. This will likely be done through the ever more convincing use of deepfakes and tools like ChatGPT to generate large amounts of propaganda and distribute it at scale. Of course, politicians and political parties will also use this to generate personalized campaign messages and emails.
generative design
Another area where we can expect rapid adoption of generative AI is in the design of physical products and services. Generative design is the name given to a new class of tools that allows designers to provide blueprints and recipes simply by entering requirements and available materials. Design platforms such as Autodesk include Generation AI functionThis allows product designers to quickly generate any number of prototypes as digital twins and test them in parallel to come up with more robust, effective, or sustainable product designs.
generative video
Video is the preferred media format among younger generations, so it’s no surprise that AI tool makers have been quick to come up with tools to capitalize on this trend. Creating video content has traditionally been expensive, primarily because it requires hiring trained human experts to create, capture, and edit the footage. By 2024, generative video tools will allow anyone to create professional-looking video content at a fraction of the price.
4 Generative speech and speech
Similar to videos and design tools, 2024 will be the year in which AI-generated voices and voices become as prevalent as AI-generated words and images were in 2023. As tools to simulate the tones and intonations that make up human speech improve, the most sophisticated voices produced by AI will begin to disappear.
5 multimodal models
Most generative AI tools, algorithms, and LLMs specialize in simulating one “mode” of expression, such as language, visuals, or sound. However, the trend is towards “multimodal” generative AI. The next version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT will not only be able to understand and interpret images, but it will also be able to receive voice commands and talk to us. Meta is also proven A model that can collect images, text, audio, depth, and inertial data all at once. This will become more common over the next year, and it will soon be common to be able to talk to AI about images and videos, just as we can talk to AI about text today.
Responsive engineers in high demand
Prompt engineers “program” generative AI systems by describing what they want them to do in terms that are most likely to yield optimal results. This job is said to be the “hottest new job in tech” in 2023, and is likely to be in high demand in 2024. This job is also known as the “AI whisperer” because it allows us to extract the best from a system with a wide range of capabilities. Sometimes it can seem complicated, incomprehensible, and intimidating.
Autonomous generation AI
Autonomous agents is a term used to describe a class of generative AI applications that effectively operate themselves by continually generating and responding to prompts. This allows you to perform more sophisticated operations than a chatbot-style generative agent that simply responds to prompts and waits for the user to tell you what to do next. One well-known example of autonomous agents emerging in 2023 is: AutoGPT. In 2024, I expect to see further advances in this field as AI engineers continue their quest for “generalized” AI that can handle any job you set them to.
Apps and services powered by generative AI
By 2024, 40% of enterprise applications will have conversational AI as a built-in feature. According to AIM Research. We’re already seeing developers like Microsoft and Adobe effectively bend over backwards to incorporate chatbots and natural language interfaces into their platforms. Popular social messaging app Snapchat adds generated AI bots to users’ contact lists that can be used to get answers to questions or treated as virtual friends. In 2024, all companies selling apps will add a chat interface to improve engagement and customer experience.
Generative AI in schools and education
In the last century, traditionalists fiercely opposed the introduction of electronic computers into the classroom, predicting that students would become overly dependent on them and would be unable to perform basic calculations without them. What actually happened was that students were able to perform much more advanced calculations at a younger age. After that, calculators became so ubiquitous that the question of whether we could live without them became meaningless. During 2024, we will likely see similar discussions about the use of generative AI by students. Meanwhile, teachers and instructors will become accustomed to using AI to generate notes, reports, lesson plans, and course summaries.
