Top AI Trends of 2022
AI made tremendous progress over the past few years and more is coming. 2022 was a particularly interesting year, with new trends and technologies emerging that will shape the direction of the industry. Here are the ones I think belong on the list.
1. DALL-E 2
This system from OpenAI generates original images from textual descriptions. It works through a process involving a large neural network trained on a dataset of text-image pairs. Once trained, the network generates new images based on the semantics of the text input. Ask it to create an image of a three-legged flamingo riding a unicycle and you get a unique, never-before-seen image matching that description.
The key benefit is the diversity and creativity of the output. Unlike traditional image generation algorithms constrained by their training data, DALL-E 2 produces novel images that were not in the training set. That makes it powerful for product design, advertising and art.
2. ChatGPT
Also from OpenAI, this NLP system engages in coherent conversation. Built on a transformer-based language model, it understands the context and semantics of a conversation, recognises patterns and generates relevant responses.
The key advantage is sustaining long, complex conversations, which suits customer service, market research and entertainment. It could power virtual assistants that answer questions and provide information in a genuinely conversational way.
3. Google L2P
This machine learning approach from Google learns from its own mistakes through self-supervised learning. Given a large amount of unstructured data, the algorithm learns from the patterns and structures it discovers.
The benefit is continuous improvement over time. Unlike traditional algorithms that need human intervention to correct errors, it fine-tunes its own performance. That has obvious value in image and speech recognition, natural language processing and autonomous driving.
4. The metaverse
A virtual world under development by various tech companies. A fully immersive environment where people interact with each other and with virtual objects, accessed through VR devices, covering gaming, socialising and work.
The potential is to change how we think about the internet, providing a platform for new forms of entertainment, socialisation and work in a highly immersive way.
Bonus: my book
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: An Industrial Perspective.
The book gives a comprehensive overview of the current state of AI and ML with a focus on industrial application. It covers the latest trends and technologies alongside the ethical and societal implications of their use.
Throughout, case studies and real-world examples illustrate practical application across industries. It also works through the ethical and societal dimension, including privacy, bias and the potential for job displacement.
For practitioners there are chapters on data preparation, model selection and evaluation, and deployment, plus guidance on avoiding common pitfalls.