2023 was the year when the hype around artificial intelligence went into hyperdrive.
Following its release in late 2022, ChatGPT-3 made AI technology accessible and genuinely useful to the general public, prompting the development of numerous other Large Language Models by some of Silicon Valley’s mightiest giants. AI was the word on everyone’s lips last year, but could it be set to enter a period of stagnation?
Rodney Brooks believes so. Brooks is a former director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT who regularly comments on technology's progress (or lack thereof). Since 2018, he has posted his predictions of self-driving cars, human space travel, and – last but not least – robotics, AI, and machine learning. He’s promised to keep making the forecasts each year until 2050 when he’ll turn 95.
In his latest scorecard, Brooks predicted that 2024 won’t be a golden age for AI, noting that the current fanfare is “following a well-worn hype cycle that we have seen again, and again, during the 60+ year history of AI.”
“Get your thick coats now. There may be yet another AI winter, and perhaps even a full-scale tech winter, just around the corner. And it is going to be cold,” Brooks concluded.
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