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As we approach the end of another year, it's becoming increasingly clear that we are navigating through the burgeoning era of AI, a time that is reminiscent of the early days of the internet, yet poised with a transformative potential far beyond. While we might still be at what could be called the "AOL stages" of AI development, the pace of progress has been relentless, with new applications and capabilities emerging daily, reshaping every facet of our lives and businesses.

In a manner once attributed to divine influence and later to the internet itself, AI has become a pervasive force it touches everything it changes, and indeed, changes everything it touches. This article will recap the events that impacted the world of AI in 2023, including the evolution and growth of AI, regulations, legislation and petitions, the saga of Sam Altman, and the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The latest in the saga of AI began late last year, on Nov. 30, 2022, when OpenAI announced the release of ChatGPT 3.5, the second major release of the GPT language model capable of generating human-like text, which signified a major step in improving how we communicate with machines. Since then, its been a very busy year for AI, and there has rarely been a week that hasnt seen some announcement relating to it.

The first half of 2023 was marked by a series of significant developments in the field of AI, reflecting the rapid pace of innovation and its growing impact across various sectors. So far, the rest of the year hasnt shown any signs of slowing down. In fact, the emergence of AI applications across industries seems to have increased its pace. Here is an abbreviated timeline of the major AI news of the year:

February 13, 2023: Stanford scholars developed DetectGPT, the first in a forthcoming line of tools designed to differentiate between human and AI-generated text, addressing the need for oversight in an era where discerning the source of information is crucial. The tool came after the release of ChatGPT 3.5 prompted teachers and professors to become alarmed at the potential of ChatGPT to be used for cheating.

February 23, 2023: The launch of an open-source project called AgentGPT, which runs in a browser and uses OpenAI's ChatGPT to execute complex tasks, further demonstrated the versatility and practical applications of AI.

February 24, 2023: Meta, formerly known as Facebook, launched Llama, a large language model with 65 billion parameters, setting new benchmarks in the AI industry.

March 14, 2023: OpenAI released GPT 4, a significantly enhanced model over its predecessor, ChatGPT 3.5, raising discussions in the AI community about the potential inadvertent achievement of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

March 20, 2023: Studies examined the responses of GPT 3.5 and GPT 4 to clinical questions, highlighting the need for refinement and evaluation before relying on AI language models in healthcare. GPT 4 outperformed previous models, achieving an average score of 86.65% and 86.7% on the Self-Assessment and Sample Exam of the USMLE tests, with GPT 3.5 achieving 53.61% and 58.78%.

March 21, 2023: Googles focus on AI during its Google I/O event included the release of Bard, a ChatGPT competitor, and other significant announcements about its forthcoming large language models and integrations into Google Workspace and Gmail.

March 21, 2023: Nvidia's announcement of Picasso Cloud Services for creating large language and visual models, aimed at larger enterprises, underscored the increasing interest of major companies in AI technologies.

March 23, 2023: OpenAI's launch of Plugins for GPT expanded the capabilities of GPT models, allowing them to connect to third-party services via an API.

March 30, 2023: AutoGPT was released, with the capability to execute and improve its responses to prompts autonomously. This advancement in AI technology showcased a significant step toward greater autonomy in AI systems, and came with the ability to be installed on users local PCs, allowing individuals to have a large language model AI chat application in their homes without the need for internet access.

April 4, 2023: An unsurprising study discovered that participants could only differentiate between human and AI-generated text with about 50% accuracy, similar to random chance.

April 13, 2023: AWS announced Bedrock, a service making Fundamental AI Models from various labs accessible via an API, streamlining the development and scaling of generative AI-based applications.

May 23, 2023: OpenAI revealed plans to enhance ChatGPT with web browsing capabilities using Microsoft Bing and additional plugins for Plus subscribers, which would initially become available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers.

July 18, 2023: In a study, ChatGPT, particularly GPT 4, was found to be able to outperform medical students in responding to complex clinical care exam questions.

August 6, 2023: The EU AI Act, announced on this day, was one of the world's first legal frameworks for AI, and saw major developments and negotiations in 2023, with potential global implications, though it was still being hashed out in mid-December.

September 8, 2023: A study revealed that AI detectors, designed to identify AI-generated content, exhibit low reliability, especially for content created by non-native English speakers, raising ethical concerns. This has been an ongoing concern for both teachers and students, as these tools regularly present original content as being produced by AI, and AI-generated content as being original.

September 21, 2023: OpenAI announced that Dall-E 3, its text-to-image generation tool, would soon be available to ChatGPT Plus users.

November 4, 2023: Elon Musk announced the latest addition to the world of generative AI: Grok. Musk said that Grok promises to "break the mold of conventional AI," is said to respond with provocative answers and insights, and will welcome all manner of queries.

November 21, 2023: Microsoft unveiled Bing Chat 2.0 now called Copilot a major upgrade to its own chatbot platform, which leverages a hybrid approach of combining generative and retrieval-based models to provide more accurate and diverse responses.

November 22, 2023: With the release of Claude 2.1, Anthropic announced an expansion in Claude's capabilities, enabling it to analyze large volumes of text rapidly, a development favorably compared to the capabilities of ChatGPT.

December 6, 2023: Google announces its OpenAI rival, Gemini, which is multimodal, can generalize and seamlessly understand, operate across and combine different types of information, including text, images, audio, video and code.

These were only a very small portion of 2023s AI achievements and events, as nearly every week a new generative AI-driven application was being announced, including specialized AI-driven chatbots for specific use cases, applications, and industries. Additionally, there was often news of interactions with and uses of AI, AI jailbreaks, predictions about the potential dystopian future it may bring, proposals of regulations, legislation and guardrails, and petitions to stop developing the technology.

Shubham A. Mishra, co-founder and global CEO at AI marketing pioneer Pixis, told CMSWire that in 2023, the world focused on building the technology and democratizing it. "We saw people use it, consume it, and transform it into the most effective use cases to the point that it has now become a companion for them," said Mishra. "It has become such an integral part of its user's day-to-day functions that they don't even realize they are consuming it."

Many view 2023 as the year of generative AI but we are only beginning to tap into the potential applications of the technology. We are still trying to harness the full potential of generative AI across different use cases. In 2024, the industry will witness major shifts, be it a rise or fall in users and applications, said Mishra. There may be a rise in the number of users, but there will also be a second wave of Generative AI innovations where there will be an incremental rise in its applications.

Related Article:Harnessing AI: Top Use Cases for Digital Commerce

Anthony Yell, chief creative officer at interactive agency, Razorfish, told CMSWire that as a chief creative officer, he and his team have seen generative AI stand out by democratizing creativity, making it more accessible and enhancing the potential for those with skills and experience to reach new creative heights. "This technology has introduced the concept of a 'creative partner' or 'creative co-pilot,' revolutionizing our interaction with creative processes."

Yell believes that this era is about marrying groundbreaking creativity with responsible innovation, ensuring that AI's potential is harnessed in a way that respects brand identity and maintains consumer trust. This desire for responsibility and trust is something that is core to the acceptance of what has been and will continue to be a very disruptive technology. As such, 2023 has included many milestones in the quest for AI responsibility, safety, regulations, ethics, and controls. Here are some of the most impactful regulatory AI events in 2023.

February 28, 2023: Former Google engineer Blake Lemoine, who was fired in 2022 for going to the press with claims that Google LaMDA is actually sentient, was back in the news doubling down on his claim.

March 22, 2023: A group of technology and business leaders, including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and tech leaders from Meta, Google and Microsoft, signed an open letter hosted by the Future of Life Institute urging AI organizations to pause new developments in AI, citing risks to society. The letter stated that "we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT 4."

May 16, 2023: Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, spoke with members of Congress to regulate AI due to the inherent risks that are posed by the technology.

May 30, 2023: AI industry leaders and researchers signed a statement hosted by the Center for AI Safety warning of the "extinction risk posed by AI." The statement said that Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war, and was signed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Geoffrey Hinton, Google DeepMind and Anthropic executives and researchers, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, and security expert Bruce Schneier.

October 31, 2023: President Biden signed the sweeping Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence, which was designed to establish new standards for AI safety and security, protect Americans privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers and workers, promote innovation and competition, and advance American leadership around the world.

November 14, 2023: The DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its initial Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence, leading the way to ensure safe and secure AI development in the future. The CISA AI roadmap came in response to President Biden's October 2023 Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence.

December 11, 2023: The European Commission and the bloc's 27 member countries reached a deal on the world's first comprehensive AI rules, opening the door for the legal oversight of AI technology.

Rubab Rizvi, chief data scientist at Brainchild, a media agency affiliated with the Publicis Groupe, told CMSWire that from predictive analytics to seamless automation, the rapid embrace of AI has not only elevated efficiency but has also opened new frontiers for innovation, shaping a dynamic landscape that keeps us on our toes and fuels the excitement of what's to come.

The generative AI we've come to embrace in 2023 hasn't just been about enhancing personalization, she said. "It's becoming your digital best friend, offering tailored experiences that elevate brand engagement to a new level," said Rizvi. "This calls for proper governance and guardrails. As generative AI can potentially expose new previously inaccessible data, we must ensure that we are disciplined in protecting ourselves and our unstructured data." Rizvi aptly reiterated what many have said throughout the year: Dont blindly trust the machine."

Related Article: The Evolution of AI Chatbots: Past, Present and Future

OpenAI was the organization that officially started the era of AI with the announcement and introduction of ChatGPT 3.5 in 2022. In the year that followed, OpenAI ceaselessly worked to continue the evolution of AI, and has been no stranger to its share of both conspiracies and controversies. This came to a head late in the year, when the organization surprised everyone with news regarding its CEO, Sam Altman.

November, 17, 2023: The board of OpenAI fired co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, stating that a review board found he was not consistently candid in his communications and that "the board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.

November, 20, 2023: Microsoft hired former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announcing that Altman and Brockman would be joining to lead Microsofts new advanced AI research team, and that Altman would become CEO of the new group.

November 22, 2023: OpenAI rehired Sam Altman as its CEO, stating that it had "reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO," along with significant changes in its non-profit board.

November 24, 2023: It was suggested that prior to Altmans firing, OpenAI researchers sent a letter to its board of directors warning of a new AI discovery that posed potential risks to humanity. The discovery, which has been referred to as Project Q*, was said to be a breakthrough in the pursuit of AGI, and reportedly influenced the board's firing of Sam Altman because of concerns that he was rushing to commercialize the new AI advancement without fully understanding its implications.

The quest for AGI, (something that Microsoft has since said could take decades), is an advanced form of AI characterized by self-learning capabilities and proficiency in a wide range of tasks, and stands as a cornerstone objective in the AI field. AGI could potentially seek to develop machines that mirror human intelligence, with the ability to understand, learn, and adeptly apply knowledge across diverse contexts, surpassing human performance in various domains.

Reflecting on 2023, we have witnessed a landmark year in AI, marked by groundbreaking advancements. Amidst these innovations, the year has also been pivotal in addressing the ethical, safety, and regulatory aspects of AI. As we conclude the year, the progress in AI not only showcases human ingenuity but also sets the stage for future challenges and opportunities, emphasizing the need for responsible stewardship of this transformative yet disruptive technology.

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The Era of AI: 2023's Landmark Year - CMSWire