The Institute for Human-Centered
Artificial Intelligence (HAI) of Stanford University has
published the seventh edition of the AI Index Report, a study
analysing the trends of artificial intelligence (AI), from
technological progress and governance to the impact on the
economy.
Here are the main takeaways from the study released by HAI.
AI beats humans on some tasks, but not on all.
AI has surpassed human performance on several benchmarks,
including some in image classification, visual reasoning, and
English understanding, the institute said in a summary of the
report published on its website.
However, it trails behind on more complex tasks including
competition-level mathematics, visual commonsense reasoning and
planning.
The industry continues to dominate frontier AI research, HAI
found.
In 2023, the industry produced 51 worthy machine learning
models, while academia contributed only 15, the institute
explained.
Moreover, in 2023, 21 notable models were produced thanks to
industry-academia cooperation in a new high, according to the
report.
Frontier models meanwhile have become much more expensive.
According to AI Index estimates, the training costs of
state-of-the-art AI models have reached unprecedented levels.
In particular, the institute cited as an example OpenAI's GPT-4
which it said required an estimated 78 million dollars to train,
while Goggle's Gemini Ultra cost 191 million dollars.
The United States leads China, the EU and Great Britain as the
leading model source of top AI models, according to the report.
In 2023, 61 AI models came from US-based institutions,
significantly outpacing the European Union's 21 and China's 15.
The report noted that robust and standardized evaluations for
large language model (LLM) responsibility are seriously lacking.
The research revealed a significant lack of standardization in
responsible AI reporting.
The main developers, including OpenAI, Google and Anthropic,
mainly test their models against different responsible AI
benchmarks.
Such a practice complicates efforts to compare in a systematic
way the risks and limitations of top AI models, HAI explained.
Generative AI investments have skyrocketed.
In spite of a decline in AI private investments last year, the
report found that funding for generative AI surged, almost
octupling from 2022 to reach 25.2 billion dollars.
The report also found that AI makes workers more productive and
leads to higher quality work.
In 2023, different studies evaluated AI's impact on labour,
suggesting that AI enables workers to finish tasks more quickly
and to improve the quality of their results.
These studies also demonstrated AI's potential to bridge the gap
between low and high-skilled workers, according to HAI.
However, other studies warned that the use of AI without
adequate supervision could lead to diminished performance.
Scientific progress accelerates even further, thanks to AI, the
report found.
In 2022, AI began to advance scientific discovery.
The year 2023, however, witnessed the launch of even more
relevant science-related AI applications, from AlphaDev, which
makes algorithmic sorting more efficient, to GNoME, which aids
the process of materials discovery.
The number of AI regulations in the United States has increased
significantly, the report noted.
The number of regulations related to AI in the US has risen
significantly in the past year and over the last five years.
In 2023 alone, the total number of AI-related regulations rose
by 56.3 percent, HAI said.
People across the world are more aware of AI's potential impact
and more nervous about it.
A survey from the Ipsos research agency highlighted that, over
the past year, the proportion of those who think AI will
drastically affect their lives over the next three to five years
has increased from 60 percent to 66 percent.
Moreover, 52 percent expressed nervousness toward AI products
and services, up 13 percentage points from 2022.
In the US, Pew data suggested that 52 percent of Americans felt
more concerned than excited about AI, up from 38 percent in
2022, HAI concluded.
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