Sora Goes Viral! How Will Artificial Intelligence Change the World?
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Clear and lively eyes, playful and adorable pets, mysterious underwater worlds, bustling summer streets, futuristic magical cities...
This short video, with its realistic scenes, rich colors, and strong atmosphere, was entirely generated by an artificial intelligence system.
Recently, OpenAI, the U.S.-based artificial intelligence research center, released its first video generation model, "Sora." This model can generate 60-second short videos simply by receiving text instructions. A year ago, the same research center released ChatGPT, an AI language model that made tasks like text writing, creative work, and code checking incredibly easy.
AI chatting, AI painting, AI music... With the successive emergence of AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content), many are declaring that the "AI revolution," which has a disruptive impact on modern social life, has officially arrived.
What exactly are the "capabilities" of AI? Why does every iteration and upgrade spark global discussions?
Generative AI can transform input content into novels, movies, and artworks. Google's artificial intelligence model 'Bard' can quickly generate a short story or poem based on the multiple words you input.
In February this year, Google announced that 'Bard' was renamed to 'Gemini'. This is a multimodal large model that can understand and combine different types of information such as text, code, audio, images, and videos.
'Bard' spent several months reading almost everything on the internet and developing a large language model, with answers derived from the language model rather than web searches.
DALL-E can turn anything you input into a work of art.
To train DALL-E, the development company provided it with approximately 600 million labeled images from the internet. Through deep learning, it can not only understand individual objects but also learn the relationships between different objects.
With Runway, you can generate visual effects in seconds that would normally take days to complete.
The company's founder, Valenzuela, stated directly that with the support of generative AI, the threshold and cost of film production will be greatly reduced in the future. Biomedical, autonomous driving, weather forecasting...
The AI technology market is vast.
Beyond the realm of artistic creation, AI technology's applications in the medical field, urban services, and weather forecasting are also highly noteworthy.
On January 29, renowned American entrepreneur Elon Musk announced that his brain-computer interface company, Neuralink, had completed the first human implantation of a brain-computer interface device, with the recipient in good condition. It is reported that this technology is fully implantable, battery-powered, wireless, and connected via Bluetooth throughout the process.
On January 30, Tsinghua University's official website released news that the university's brain-computer interface research team, in collaboration with Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, successfully conducted the world's first wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface clinical trial in October 2023.
The patient, who had been quadriplegic for 14 years due to a car accident, achieved brain-controlled functions such as drinking water independently after three months of postoperative rehabilitation training, with a grasping accuracy rate exceeding 90%.
Although brain-computer interface technology still faces many challenges and even skepticism, there is no doubt that artificial intelligence has made significant achievements in the medical field, particularly in diagnosis based on medical imaging. Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved approximately 420 imaging-related algorithms, primarily for cancer treatment, with accuracy rates ranging from 80% to 90%. Beyond the medical field, generative AI will also be more widely involved in urban public services and weather forecasting practices.
Kumar is a truck driver in India. When driving on highways, a round trip takes 60 hours, and prolonged fatigue driving can easily lead to traffic accidents. Now, he has a "silent" companion on his work journeys, constantly reminding him to avoid fatigue or maintain a safe distance.
This is a terminal device that integrates AI and computer vision-driven technology. The outward-facing camera calculates the distance between the vehicle and other objects. The camera facing the driver monitors the driver's behavior and state. If the driver is on the phone or drowsy, the device will alert the driver to pay attention to safe driving.
In July 2023, Huawei Cloud's Pangu Weather Model was officially launched on the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts website, showcasing China's capability to solve challenges in the meteorological field with large models.
The World Bank estimates that improved weather forecasting and early warning systems could not only generate $162 billion in annual benefits but also save approximately 23,000 lives each year.
Additionally, AI is playing an increasingly important role in promoting educational equity and addressing the challenges of an aging society, forming a huge market. According to Bloomberg, the generative AI market is expected to expand to $1.3 trillion by 2032.
AI-generated deceptive content interferes with elections. Or causing chaos during national elections
While AI technology brings many new opportunities, it inevitably creates unprecedented challenges and risks. Among them, the use of artificial intelligence to generate deceptive content interfering with elections is regarded as a significant global challenge.
On January 23 local time, the 2024 U.S. presidential election Republican primary was held in New Hampshire. Prior to this, many American voters reported receiving a "phone call from President Biden."
The call began with Biden's catchphrase "What a bunch of malarkey," advising voters not to vote for Trump but to save their votes for the Democratic Party in the November general election. Subsequently, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre clarified that it was a fake phone recording.
Analysts worry that at a time when American voters are susceptible to misinformation, AI could create even more chaos during the election.
According to incomplete statistics, more than 70 countries or regions worldwide will hold important elections in 2024, covering over half of the global population. At the recently concluded 60th Munich Security Conference, multiple global tech companies signed an agreement pledging to combat AI misuse aimed at interfering with elections in 2024.
Applications of Artificial Intelligence Ethical rules must be fully adhered to.
Data from the China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID) under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that in 2023, the adoption rate of generative AI by enterprises in China reached 15%, with a market size of approximately 14.4 trillion yuan. The manufacturing, retail, telecommunications, and healthcare industries have all seen rapid growth in the adoption of generative AI technology.
Experts predict that by 2035, generative AI could contribute nearly 90 trillion yuan in economic value globally, with China accounting for over 30 trillion yuan, or more than 40% of the total.
How should we view the future development of AI?
Li Xiaodong, Vice Chairman of the Internet Society of China and founder of Fuxi Institution, analyzed that after six to seven decades of development, AI is now widely applied in fields such as technological innovation, cultural industries, and industrial manufacturing. The improvement in computing power and reduction in costs have also made general AI accessible to the general public.
It is foreseeable that in the near future, AI will be omnipresent, driving information technology from digitalization and networking into a fully intelligent era. "Soon, we will no longer discuss AI because it will have been fully integrated into our lives, everywhere," said Li Xiaodong. In a sense, the utilization of artificial intelligence will create new generational gaps and digital divides among nations, institutions, and even individuals, driving humanity from agricultural and industrial civilizations toward a digital civilization. Therefore, the ability to fully learn and utilize AI will lead to differentiation among humans and may even have a profound impact on human civilization.
With the rapid development of AI, what regulatory challenges will we face?
Li Xiaodong stated that "data acquisition + application methods" are the two major issues in AI regulation. Legitimate and reasonable data acquisition is crucial for AI, and the application methods of AI must fully comply with ethical rules. If these two core issues are not properly addressed, they will severely hinder the development and utilization of artificial intelligence.
From the perspective of data acquisition, collection and acquisition involve not only data ownership issues but also national security and personal privacy. How to obtain data legally and reasonably is of paramount importance for artificial intelligence.
Additionally, how to effectively connect data silos, promote data exchange and sharing, and enhance interoperability between datasets is also a key focus of AI governance. Otherwise, the development of AI without sustained data support will be severely impaired.
From the perspective of AI application methods, AI demonstrates unprecedented capabilities in information processing, with its essence being to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of human information utilization. However, human societies have their own laws, regulations, and moral constraints based on specific countries and cultures, and AI development must fully comply with these legal frameworks and ethical principles. Currently, some artificial intelligence technologies indeed pose challenges to traditional ethics and established laws, leading to the emergence of new global ethical norms and regulations. During the formation of these rules, it is essential to maintain active interaction and tracking to ensure ethical norms and global regulations progress on an upward trajectory.