There is a lot of buzz around the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years, specifically about Generative AI (Gen AI) and the advancements that have been made since the release of ChatGPT in November of 2022 and its meteoric rise in popularity.
Companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and Meta, to name a few, have firmly established themselves as frontrunners in Gen AI. While the competition is abundant, each of these companies has its niche carved out, but more on that later.
So, what is Generative AI and how does it work? To put it simply, Gen AI is a type of AI that can create new content such as text, images, music/audio, videos and other data. To do so, Gen AI models are used. These models, I’ll spare you the technical details behind them, work by learning patterns. That is, they analyze large datasets to understand the underlying patterns and structures. Think of a collection of existing images or writings; by studying these images or writings, a model can then create new content that resembles the content it learned from.
You may immediately have ideas on how you could use these tools, as do people, businesses and institutions everywhere, but have you thought about the potential for misuse? Cheating, accidental or intentional misinformation, deepfakes, perpetuating biases, copyright infringement and even privacy concerns. It is for reasons such as these that many business and academic institutions have defined policies about the proper use of Gen AI.
From a business case, many businesses believe that if they do not adopt Gen AI early, they could fall behind where other businesses gain an advantage. Yet others have put bans on its use due to fears of bad information or unethical use until such time as they can evaluate use cases and implement them in a controlled manner. The company I work for chose a hybrid approach and restricted use to a limited number of individuals until proof of concept could be provided for items such as marketing materials, software application integrations or business reports.
Similarly in academia, there are concerns about the negative impact Gen AI can have on students. Relying on Gen AI as a shortcut to complete assignments would allow students to deprive themselves of learning opportunities where objectives such as research, critical thinking and writing exist. Additionally, presenting AI output as one’s own work without giving credit to the AI source is a form of plagiarism. But this is not to say that there is not a place for Gen AI in academics as well. There absolutely is. Gen AI can be integrated into a curriculum for enhanced learning experiences or to teach critical evaluation of Gen AI output and several other potential use cases. But prior to introducing the tools in an academic environment, many believe that best practices should be established and then strictly adhered to.
Who are the companies behind the Gen AI trend? As mentioned earlier, several companies have positioned themselves as leaders in specific areas of Gen AI. Below are a few of these companies and the products they offer.
OpenAI: Generally seen as the best overall at Generative AI. Products include Chat-GPT, GPT-4o,
DALL-E 3, Sora.
Microsoft: Best Enterprise generative AI partner. Products include Copilot, Azure AI Studio.
Google: Best for Integrated Generative AI Solutions. Products include Gemini (formerly Bard), Vertex AI, LaMDA, PaLM 2.
Meta: Best for Advertisers. Products include: Meta AI, Llama, Seamless Communication Models.
Synthesia: Best Generative AI Video Company. Products include: Synthesia.
Guidde: Best for Automated tutorials. Products include: Guidde.
Take the opportunity to learn about Gen AI in your own time and determine how you may be able to use it. You may find that it is just a fun tool to use for generating images or for comic relief asking goofy questions, but you may also find that using Gen AI add-ins for Excel or PowerPoint, for example, make you more productive at school or work. There are so many legitimate uses, so you are bound to find something that works for you.
There is, after all, a reason that Chat-GPT is currently the fastest growing consumer application in history having reached a monthly active user count of over 100 million users two months after its initial release. This is not a technology that will go away any time soon. So, embrace it, in ethical ways of course, but always remember that Gen AI is only as good as the data sources it uses and as such everything output by Gen AI should be validated.
Brian earned a B.A. in Communication Arts, with a minor in Written Communication and was a staff writer then editor of Dateline. He is an IT Executive at Messer Construction Co. leading infrastructure, IT operations and support services.