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Generative AI has been a big deal lately, with companies pouring lots of money into it. The release of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022 was a significant milestone in the world of artificial intelligence. The GPT series, created by OpenAI, has been a game-changer in the field of AI. However, despite its success, Bill Gates, a billionaire and tech expert, thinks that this technology might not be progressing as much as we thought.
In a chat with a German business newspaper called Handelsblatt, the 67-year-old guy mentioned that there are many reasons to think GPT technology might not be improving much anymore. He even said he could be mistaken about this. He explained that, unlike what the folks at OpenAI believe about GPT-5, he personally thinks that the current generative AI has hit a limit. When talking about how much progress has been made, he described the jump from GPT-2 to GPT-4 as "amazing."
During his interview, Gates made a prediction. He said that in the next two to five years, AI software will get better at doing its job, and it will become cheaper. This means we'll see more useful AI applications. Gates also mentioned something interesting. He thinks there might be a slowdown in progress at first. He believes that GPT-4 is as good as it gets, and he's not sure GPT-5 will be any better.
But Gates had more to say. He thinks that, in the near future, AI has a lot of promise. New studies will help AI become more trustworthy and understandable. He also mentioned that even developing countries will gain a lot from AI. He talked about how smartphones can give people health advice, and that's just the beginning.
Speaking about the price and trustworthiness of AI, Gates admitted that some AI chips from Nvidia are quite costly, around $30,000 each. These chips have a ton of computing power and use a lot of energy. He mentioned, "Training a big language model is pretty expensive. But using it for things like answering questions used to cost about ten cents per question. Now, it's probably more like three cents. However, the expenses for computer power and semiconductors are still really high." This is according to the newspaper.
Gates continued by talking about how AI can be a big help in healthcare. He mentioned that AI can speed up the process of creating new medicines and vaccines. Even though there are still some issues with how dependable AI is, he believes AI will become very important in these fields.
The philanthropist also talked about a tricky part of AI, which he called the "AI black box." He thinks that understanding how AI keeps information secret will be a big achievement. When asked about AI being like a black box with its secrets hidden, Gates mentioned that many smart folks are already trying to figure it out.
Now, on the topic of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Gates said we can't be sure when it will show up. He thinks AGI could be a really big deal for humanity when it does arrive.
And when it comes to AI helping with climate change, the co-founder of Microsoft had some hope. He said that the models used to understand climate are getting better. Gates believes we'll also have new types of crops that can handle high temperatures. Plus, he's putting his money into nearly 100 companies that are using AI to make the power grid better.
