Technology

History and Future of A.I.

Early History and Foundations (Pre-1950s)

• The idea of creating intelligent machines can be traced back to ancient Greek myths, such as the story of Talos, a giant automaton made of bronze that guarded the island of Crete.
• In the 17th century, philosophers like René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes explored the concept of thinking machines and the nature of intelligence.
• In the 19th century, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace worked on the Analytical Engine, which is considered a precursor to modern computers.

The Birth of AI (1950s)

• In 1950, Alan Turing proposed the “Imitation Game,” later known as the Turing Test, as a way to evaluate machine intelligence4.
• The term “Artificial Intelligence” was coined by John McCarthy in 1956 at the Dartmouth Conference, which is considered the founding event of AI as a field of study.
• Early AI programs, such as the Logic Theorist and the General Problem Solver, were developed during this period.

The Golden Years and First AI Winter (1956-1974)

• AI research experienced a period of optimism and significant funding in the 1960s, with the development of expert systems, natural language processing, and early neural networks.
• However, the field faced a setback in the 1970s, known as the “First AI Winter,” due to the failure to deliver on overly ambitious promises and a lack of funding.

AI Renaissance and Expert Systems (1980s-1990s)

• AI research experienced a resurgence in the 1980s, with the development of expert systems and the commercialization of AI technologies.
• Expert systems, which encoded human knowledge into computer programs, found applications in various industries, such as medicine and finance.

The Rise of Machine Learning and Big Data (1990s-2010s)

• The 1990s saw the emergence of machine learning techniques, such as neural networks and support vector machines, which enabled AI systems to learn from data.
• The availability of large datasets and increased computing power fueled the development of more advanced AI systems.

The AI Boom and Deep Learning (2010s-Present)

• The 2010s witnessed a significant breakthrough in AI with the development of deep learning, a powerful machine learning technique inspired by the structure of the human brain.
• Deep learning has enabled remarkable achievements in areas such as computer vision, natural language processing, and game playing.
• AI has become increasingly integrated into various aspects of our lives, from virtual assistants and self-driving cars to personalized recommendations and fraud detection.

The Future of AI

The future of AI holds immense potential and challenges. Researchers are working on developing more advanced AI systems that can reason, learn, and adapt like humans, leading to the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). However, concerns about the ethical implications, privacy, and potential misuse of AI technologies remain. As AI continues to evolve, it is expected to have a profound impact on various industries and society as a whole. Here are some key points on the possible implications of A.I. in our society that need to be accounted for, followed by some positive effects that A.I. will likely produce.

1. Economic and Social Upheaval Seems Likely
   The rapid advancement of AI technologies, including the hypothetical prospect of AGI capable of any human intellectual effort, is expected to cause significant economic, social, and political disruptions. The distributional impacts and how the benefits and risks will be shared across societies and nations remain uncertain.
2. Potential for Concentration of Power
   There are concerns that major corporations with access to vast data, computing resources, and top AI talent could gain disproportionate economic and political power through AI dominance. However, it is not guaranteed that a single entity achieving AGI would automatically grant control over the world’s stocks and money. While the first-mover in developing AGI could potentially gain significant advantages, the search results do not suggest that this would automatically translate into controlling the world’s stocks and money. Previous general-purpose technologies have produced widely shared economic benefits rather than one nation dominating.
3. Workforce Displacement and Need for Retraining
   AI is projected to cause widespread technological unemployment or a forced adaptation. AI has the potential to automate a wide range of tasks, including non-routine cognitive tasks previously thought to be difficult to automate. This expands the scope of potential job displacement beyond what previous technologies could achieve. High-skilled occupations like business professionals, managers, scientists, and legal professionals are among the most exposed to AI automation. Workers may need to develop new skills to complement AI systems or transition to roles involving more complex, non-routine tasks that are difficult to automate.
4. Risks of Bias, Discrimination, and Misuse
   The increasing reliance on AI systems raises concerns about perpetuating biases, enabling hidden discrimination, compromising data privacy, and the potential for malicious use cases like spreading misinformation or exposing personal information. If AI disproportionately benefits higher-skilled workers or major corporations with access to data and talent, it could worsen income and wealth inequality within and across countries.
5. Transparency, Accountability, and Ethical Challenges
   Ensuring AI systems are transparent, explainable, and accountable to the public is a major challenge. Developing effective governance frameworks, ethical guidelines, and collaborative decision-making processes involving diverse stakeholders is crucial.

Positive Effects of A.I.

1. Economic Growth and Productivity Gains
   AI technologies like generative AI models could drive significant productivity improvements across various industries. By automating routine tasks, AI can boost productivity and efficiency across various industries, potentially driving economic growth. Will these productivity gain benefit capital owners or workers?
2. Assistance for the Underprivileged
   AI could potentially help developing countries and/or small businesses overcome technological and financial barriers to development. For example, providing customized agricultural advice or reducing impediments to accessing financial services. By providing equal access to information and capabilities across socioeconomic levels, A.I. democratizes education and skill development opportunities.
3. Universal Tutor and Expert Assistant 
   The prospect of AGI capable of any intellectual task could act as a tireless tutor and expert assistant, potentially strengthening education and knowledge dissemination globally. A.I. provides leverage to small businesses and developing nations by eliminating the need for large capital investments or workforces.

Harnessing the power of A.I.

Please enjoy these resources for utilizing Artificial Intelligence for many of your potential tasks. Here I share my process of learning all about how we can use A.I.! Each of these tools require reading documentation and some have a learning curve, but some of them are plug and play! Find the right tool for the job to solve problems or make your life more efficient!

Research

ChatGPT‘s knowledge is based on a fixed training dataset, which may not always reflect the latest information, but it does excel at having open-ended, complex conversations and generating creative and informative content due to its advanced natural language processing capabilities. You can even voice chat, and the voice that speaks back to you is uncanny in its human tone, taking breaths and hemming and hawing sometimes. 

Perplexity.AI is designed to provide precise, factual information by drawing from a wide range of live web sources, including academic databases and reliable online resources all of which are cited along its response. It prioritizes accuracy and currency over conversational abilities.

There are Apps for your phone, including ChatGPT and Ask AI (which uses chatGPT technology) which are great for researching through conversation styles!

SciSpace and Google SGE are similar web applications worth checking out. 

The creators of Ted Talks have created infectiuous-generosity.  and they named it TIGG. It combines ideas and ambitions of benevolent people, and helps you create and action your ideas, TIGG is your “24/7 coach with endless ideas, suport and tools to make your generosity spread far and wide, infectious and inspiring, across social media.”

Fine-Tuning AI Models

Large AI models are trained on a vast amount of general data from the internet. This allows them to learn broad knowledge and capabilities. However, to specialize them for a particular task or domain, you can fine-tune the model on a smaller, task-specific dataset. You can do this by

1. Obtaining a relevant dataset for your application (e.g. product details, medical records, legal documents).
2. Formatting the data into examples that map inputs to desired outputs.
3. Using this dataset to further train the large AI model, adjusting its parameters to perform well on your specific task

These fine-tuned models can become income-generating by licensing the model to customers through companies such as Anthropic and/or OpenAI. Below are fine-tuned AI services that individuals have trained and are now offering through usage fees/subscriptions. Companies may hire a fine-tuner or buy a fine-tuned A.I. model for their specific applications! Here is an example of a fine-tuned AI model whose function is to provide cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Character.AI has a bunch of fine-tuned models to do a variety of things with a variety of characters: life coach, travel consultant, interviewing coach, creative helper, language learning assistance, book recommendations, and more!

Business Efficiency

Fireflies.ai helps your team transcribe, summarize, search, and analyze voice conversations.

Summarize Videos

summarize.tech is here to help you summarize those long, educational youtube videos. I have it as a shortcut on my homescreen for those times my friends send me long videos i don’t have time to watch! 

ElevenLabs creation where it harnesses A.I. for its ability to dub and/or translate videos. 

Creating videos

You can also use Animated Drawings to… animate your drawings…. If you use an real photo, it’ll look really silly, but it works pretty well on actual drawings!

Pika labs (which you can also access through Discords Pika bot) allows you to a text prompt and set a frame rate and aspect ratio, and it creates a decent video for you! Capcut has an upscaling feature. Replicate can restore other images. Illusion Diffusion can do some pretty funky things to images. Moon Valley is a video maker also worth checking out. Insta3D and LeiaPix can create animations. 

Gamma  helps make beautiful presentations.

Heygen helps create videos with a.i. generated avatars and voices.

Synthesia.io creates a.i avatars and voiceovers in 140+ languages.

Image Creation

You’ve no doubt seen the incredible creations on social media, as well as debates over authenticity, artist rights, and economic implications of a.i. generated images. If you’ve clicked around this site, you’ve seen a lot of content created using Bing Image Creator. The downside is that it is difficult to get exactly what you were seeking! Here are some more free image generators as well as some subscription-based services:

 Pixlr has free “express” online AI image generator called “text-to-image AI Art Image Generator.” VideoLeap is primarily a video editing tool, but offers a free AI image generator as part of its suite of features. ArtGuru is a free online generator. All of these have paid premium accounts with more capabilities. 

Runway offers both free and paid subscription versions of their image generator. Pictory offers a free trial and then has different pricing options. Midjourney is a popular image generator that requires a subscription fee and does not have a free version.

Ideogram allows you to put words into it.  Others to explore are Dalle3, Google SGE, and Playground AI.

Web, Code, Design

Durable creates your website in minutes, integrates SEO, and assist with blog content creation, invoicing, and CRM. It is useful for small business owners with no coding or wordpress experience, but it seems less economical than finding a better deal on hosting your site. You can create your website for free, but for it to go live you will have to choose between a personal or business plan.

For people who work closely with code, code whisperer enables programmers to generate code suggestions based on your comments and existing code. It can also help people learning code by explaining your code, helping students understand the code through natural dialogue. It can then coach you into upgrading and migrate your application to the latest language version in minutes. It can provide suggestions for adding unit tests, debugging, optimizing code, and more.

REimagineHome allows you to visualize a remodel, interior decorating, or a landscaping plan and comes with a free 7 day trial. 

Music

Suno, MusicGen, and Textfx must be checked out!

Udio allows you to make music.