The capability of AI systems, especially that of ChatGPT, leads to the proposition that soon the artificial intelligence system will have consciousness. Still, this could be underestimation of the biological consciousness the human beings have.

It is so amazing to get the kind of responses from the AI model. Does it work only on the strength of algorithms and smart recognition of patterns? The quality of output generated by ChatGPT sways us to believe that it emanates from a conscious system.

Though the responsiveness of ChatGPT appear to be from a conscious system, we are drawing a wrong inference. Neuroscientists know that the model lacks the sensory contact that a live organism has with the world around it. In addition, the architecture of thalamocortical system of the brain is different.

Can consciousness emerge whenever intelligent systems, whether biological or artificial, become large enough? The conversation we have with a bot seems so real. It is tempting to attribute consciousness to it. However, consciousness is what we perceive it to be. It is in the eyes of beholder.

These models lack feelings and emotions. Besides, they are not cellular organisms. Their nodes are not exactly what the neurons of the brain are.

Prompt engineers provoke ChatGPT to the extent that makes us feel that it is a self-aware entity. The quest will continue, but never ever ChatGPT will be able to prove that it is a conscious entity since surely it is not.

Of course, in fullness of time, they will be able to do anything that humans can do.

In 2022, Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer, argued that LaMDA chatbot was conscious, though most other experts disagreed with him. ChatGPT lacks empathy and emotional entelligence.

Stephen Hawking imagines AI that improves and replicates itself. Perhaps, this could be a new form of life. He warned that these superhumans would use gene editing to take over. Their expertise in genetic engineering could let them surpass their fellow beings.

Evolution theory has an altogether different trajectory while conscious living organisms emerged. There are no parallels in AI systems of such evolution.

We have to cover a long way before we understand consciousness and hence a long way to have conscious machines.

AI’s use by federal agencies in the US will be governed by an executive order the US president has signed. The order has been released on 30th October, 2023 (Monday). It is a step in the right direction as the government is a top customer for tech companies.

Since the arrival of generative AI, it is expected that the developers of AI systems should report the training and testing processes to the federal government.

As we have already written here, executives of tech companies have already alerted the society at large about the potential risks of the AI systems.

The presidential order aims to promote AI with a government-wide strategy.

Lawmakers are already working on establishing guardrails while promoting AI.

The government wants to prevent bias in hiring while using the AI systems in recruitment and selection.

The draft order wants to encourage the use of AI to prevent unwanted calls.

There should be safeguards on the part of federal agencies while using citizens’ data. Privacy is a prime concern.

Big tech has given a voluntary commitment to use AI responsibly.

AI has raised both concern and acclaim. The US president has signed a lengthy executive order. Big tech will be directed to put powerful AI models through safety tests and submit results to the government before their public release.

The power to vet technology will apply to the future systems, and not to those which are already on the market. The power refers to the national or economic security risks.

Infrastructure will be created to watermark contents often referred to as deepfakes.

Tech Mahindra is an IT major in India, and the fifth largest software services firm in India. They have launched Project Indus for LLMs of Indian languages. A 15-member Project Indus team plans to release first the LLM for Hindi and its 37 dialects. The model will be ready by December 2023 or January 2024. It is an attempt by the company to build a foundational model on Indian languages.

The team has collected data in Hindi and related dialects over the past two months. It is a corpus of 1.2 terabytes of data. They would develop a refined web text from this by November, 2023. It will be open source.

Later, the work will start for other languages. AI’s growth is verticalised in future. These LLMs are the base. Later there can be domain specific models — rural finance models, agritech models, healthcare models and so on.

A TV channel receives feedback from the viewers, but it is not continuous. There is a time lag of three months and thus the ratings get affected and in turn the advertising revenues. Zee, therefore, decided to leverage the capabilities of its Technology and Innovation Centre in Bangalore.

Zee developed ScriptGPT in collaboration with OpenAI using 1.3 million variables. These variables include character archetypes, plot twists etc. It was trained on 42000 episodes from channels across Hindi General Entertainment landscape. By April 2024, it would have ingested 100,000 episodes. It also received BARC data, brand track data, content and audience research. Its forecast accuracy is 90 per cent. It has achieved this after multiple iterations.

While it is a challenge to source copious amount of data to build its intelligence, there is an issue of the copyright of the data. They have a team of lawyers to vet the stuff they feed to the model. Of course, the IP rights of the output of the model is still a moot point. The jurisprudence is still evolving.

After a serial gets screened for a few episodes, ScriptGPT can be questioned about the suggestions to alter the show so as to improve its ratings.

ScriptGPT facilitates the understanding of characters, stories. plots and twists that the audience seeks.

There are efforts to use the model to generate a full movie script. That is worrisome for the script writers. However, they can upskill themselves in AI technology so that their jobs do not get affected.

ScriptGPT makes you alive to what works and why it works. It brings the organisation closer to the audiences.

Media firms can use AI tools to edit and dub the videos and films.

It is difficult to predict the time when artificial general intelligence or AGI will appear to match the cognitive function of the human beings or even to surpass it.

Sam Altman of OpenAI, however, feels that even before the advent of AGI, AI has the capability to influence the human mind. This influence could be superhuman persuasion leading to some strange outcomes. He has, however, not elaborated on these outcomes.

We can imagine how ChatGPT and other bots can establish a bond with the users. Such a bond can be highly emotional. It is not unusual for stressed individuals to seek relief from internet. At times, such users can be taken for a ride.

At times, there is no emotional connect with a bot, but the system has earned a lot of trust. AI may have hallucinated. It can create a serious problem.

AI can persuade individuals into unethical behaviour. It is for individuals such as Altman to clear the ambiguity about the strange outcomes, given their standing in the profession.

What has taken the world by storm is the arrival of ChatGPT in late November, 2022. In the development of artificial intelligence, this is a seminal moment. OpenAI introduced GPT series, where GPT stands for Generative Pretrained Transformer which seems to guide the AI domain.

In a recent interview to a German newspaper Handelsblatt, Bill Gates, 67, founder of Microsoft who backs OpenAI feels that the GPT technology has plateaued. He, of course, added that this could be a wrong belief. His main contention was that contrary to popular opinion about GPT-5, he believes that the current generative AI has reached its zenith. The progress between GPT-2 and GPT-4 is incredible.

The next few years will be for consolidation of AI, increasing its accuracy, and reducing its cost. He does not see a breakthrough between GPT-4 and GPT-5. Of course, in the short-term, AI is full of potential, and will tremendously benefit the developing nations. There could health counselling online and on smart phones. AI can benefit healthcare, new drug development and vaccine making.

He spoke about GPU chips costing high — say $30000 a piece. These chips consume lot of electricity and large amount of computing power. There is reduction in cost per query — from ten cents previously to 3 cents now. The costs of computing power and chips, however, remain high.

Bill Gates spoke about the blackbox whose inner workings are not known. There are many individuals who try to decipher AI’s internal workings. Bill Gates is not sure about the arrival of AGI, but agreed that it can have profound effect on humanity.

Moore’s Law stated doubling of computational growth every two years, but this was true before 2010. With the arrival of neural networks early 2010s, the computational resources utilisation doubled almost every six months. It is a paradigm shift.

With the surge in demand for compute power, the role of semiconductors becomes more significant since they are the backbone of compute processes.

The manufacturing of semiconductors is a complex process.

Chips are designed, to begin with, using electronic design software which is automatic.

There are 500 plus steps in making of chips. It takes 4-6 months to complete these processes.

After designing, there is fabrication in specialised units. It is a capital intensive process — it may cost up to $20 billion.

Lastly, there is chip assembly, testing and packaging (ATP). It involves cutting silicon waters into chips and adding connectors to chip frames.

Semiconductor market in 2022 stands at global valuation of $574 billion, and is forecast to grow to $1381 billion by 2029, witnessing a CAGR of 12.2 per cent

The development of AI at a rapid pace is so unrestrained that humanity’s future is endangered. An MIT professor of physics Max Tegmark calls this a ‘race to the bottom’ and urges us to stop this race. He has drafted an open better with several celebrated signatories, and tech industry stalwarts asking industry to halt AI experiments for sometime, say six months. Tegmark asks for AI safety standards to convert what is ‘race to the bottom’ into ‘race to the top’. Of course, AI with an oversight has incredible benefits to offer. No oversight, and we are exposed to perils of AI. Governments can think of licensing the AI models.

AGI is equal to human level intellect or above human level intellect. AGI calls for tighter regulation.

To deal with climate change, there is an international body — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On similar lines, to deal with AI, Eric Schmidt of Google, Mustafa Suleyman of Inflection and DeepMind and Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind advocated a body at international level.

Demis Hassabis recommends greater regulation of AI since it will pose an existential crisis once it acquires intelligence beyond humans. The earlier the world responds, the better it is. Among other dangers of AI, Hassabis is also concerned about bio-weapons.

Still, it is not entirely a gloomy picture. AI has the potential to do a lot of good.

Nuclear research has oversight of CERN and other bodies such as International Atomic Energy Agency. Such equivalents can be conceived for AI too.

November 1 and 2, 2023. UK is holding an. AI Summit on AI governance. They want to arrive at a consensus about the dangers of AI.

AI will be of great help in medicine and science. Hassabis is clear that the more serious apprehensions are about artificial general intelligeble (AGI). AGI possesses intelligence equal to human beings or surpassing human beings. The world is divided about AGI. Some call it a crisis situation, whereas others see it as the most important invention humanity would have made.

Interestingly, Sam Altman predicts the arrival of AGI in the next ten years. Altman, however, feels AGI will be of great help to humanity.

Microsoft is doing well with revenues of $56 billion, and profits of $23 billion in 2023. In a letter released on LinkedIn Satya Nadela, CEO tells shareholders and other stakeholders about the big bet they take on AI. So far, the industry used some platforms, whereas AI is a platform shift. It creates maximum enterprise value. Microsoft has spotted an opportunity which it intends to exploit, and has done risk analysis. Microsoft has invested $10-$13 billions in OpenAI. Microsoft infuses AI into everything it sells.

Of late, industry witnessed shifts such as blockchain technology and metaverse. They invested hugely and quickly. AI is another cup of tea. It will replace some of the existing technologies. AI may replace the browser we use today. Co-pilot can shop, code, analyze, learn and create. Maybe, AI will continue to grow, or it may have plateaued. But Microsoft is in a comfortable position, as Satya Nadela has put MS in the best possible position.