Stanford Just Released a Report on the State of AI, Here’s What You Need to Know

The ever shifting landscape of AI has forced the industry to make a lot of changes because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up having a huge impact on them. However, the speed at which these changes are occurring might make it harder to stay up to date with them than might have been the case otherwise. Stanford has just released a sprawling 386 page report that provides an overview of the current state of AI.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that one major change revealed in this report could tell us a lot about the future of AI. For the past decade, much of the work that has been done in the field of AI was largely led by academics.

In spite of the fact that this is the case, this past year has seen industry take up the slack, making it the single biggest contributor the field as of right now. This change does not look like it will be going away anytime soon, so it’s safe to assume that the future of AI largely rests with corporations with all things having been considered and taken into account.

What’s more, Americans seem to have a more negative view of AI than people in other parts of the world. Only 35% of Americans felt like the benefits of AI outweighed any harms that it might have. On the other end of the spectrum were countries like China, India and Saudi Arabia, where as many as 70% of people believed that the pros outweighed the cons as far as AI was concerned.

Additionally, this report also outlined some of the drawbacks of the rapid advancement that the field of AI has been seeing. For one thing, the energy footprint that AI consumes has increased dramatically in the span of just a single year.

Furthermore, the report also revealed that the number of controversies surrounding AI reached 260 in 2021. That is about 26 times as many incidents and controversies as were recorded back in 2012, which just goes to show that as AI grows, so too will the issues surrounding it.

However, the findings in the report did not paint all that dire of a picture. For one thing, AI is still going to introduce a multitude of efficiencies in various areas. That will help to bring the energy footprint of the overall industry down by a fairly large margin, thereby making it more sustainable from an environmentalist standpoint.

As for ethical concerns, while the increase in incidents is definitely something to take note of, the number is still fairly low. 260 incidents is barely a blip on the radar, especially when you compare it to the level of influence that AI is having.

All in all, this report reveals some useful insights that can help us to determine the direction in which AI might be headed. It will be interesting to see how things change from here on out as AI becomes an ever more crucial aspect of the world we are living in.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World