Talking to AIs - The Context S05E16

We often imagine technology in our science fiction scenarios that is very different from what happens when it becomes available. Today, we are starting to talk about Artificial Intelligence that is not exactly like what was depicted in the Sci-Fi books we were reading decades ago.

There has been an explosion of experimentation in the past years, and now there are tools available, at least in preliminary beta versions, for neural networks of very large sizes that can provide paragraphs of text or images from an initial prompt. GPT-3 is an example of the first generating text from a prompt, and it has become the basis for numerous applications. DALL-E-2 and MidJourney are examples of platforms that generate images while being assisted and powered by Artificial Intelligence, where the prompt will produce a particular picture.

Yes, sometimes the robot would end up doing a different thing from what is asked, but this conversation between the robot and the human, it can lead to something bigger, something greater. Right now these neural networks have billions, hundreds of billions and soon, trillions of parameters, but I look forward to when they’ll be trained to handle even more large amounts of data.

What we are doing right now is not the definitive way that we are going to use to interact with AIs, and it’s already something that not everyone has the patience to learn and to follow. Some people will not want to keep experimenting and improving until the result satisfies them; they will want faster and easier ways of going about their business using Artificial Intelligence. But in the meantime, I think this current phase is very precious since it shows how large the space of creativity enabled by AI is.

This new level of creative scenario is going to be possible, but in the meantime, understanding the power of these tools and the unlimited universe of creation is accelerating, and I am so happy that these tools are available to anyone. Anyone can get their hands dirty and understand the power of Artificial Intelligence today, and I invite you to do so. Even if it's just a test with just a handful of images, you will be able to call yourself an artist and learn to interact with the superpower of Artificial Intelligence, which will help you create a better future.