AI advances continue to shape the way we live, both in big and small ways. Every industry in our society is impacted by artificial intelligence, and every facet of our society is affected by all new AI advancements. 

In 2022, the open launch and rise of ChatGPT created significant buzz among the general public about AI advances that intersect with daily life. But what do these incredible AI advances mean for us as a society?

While it can be difficult to wade through the seemingly never-ending list of advancements in AI, it is important to pay close attention to the ways in which artificial intelligence affects society as a whole. What may seem like an insignificant AI advancement in one industry might have a fairly complex impact on daily life once we understand how it is being used. 

ChatGPT, as an example, enabled students to write entire essays by using this AI and turning them in as their own. On the flip side, developers are attempting to develop AI models to detect AI usage in writing.

It isn’t difficult to follow how AI advances can end up creating a domino effect on our daily lives if we don’t pay attention and stay ahead of the learning curve. The fear that artificial intelligence will replace our jobs and our lives drives the importance of keeping up. With that in mind, let’s start by tackling AI advances for a variety of industries and then discuss some specific advances in AI we should pay close attention to.

AI Advances in Various Industries

Recent advancements in AI have popped up in a variety of industries and fields of study, but not all of them may be relevant to the general population. There are going to be cases for every AI advancement that could have a greater impact on a different part of the population, however, we are going to focus on the general population and not specific subsets. 

For example, AI advances that have a direct impact on vehicles are significant because so much of the world has access to or interactions with vehicles and roadways.

Here are some recent advancements in AI across a variety of fields that have a wide-ranging effect on the general population.

• Health & Medical: from wearable devices to selecting chemical compositions that can be helpful (or harmful) for patients, AI advances in the healthcare and medical industry have far-reaching effects. In 2023, we will see more AI being used for synthesizing data from a variety of devices to help create a comprehensive diagnosis for patient care.
• Automotive & road safety: car manufacturers developed Lane-Keep-Assist using computer vision and Tesla has made self-driving vehicle technology a topic of public interest. In 2023 will see a rise in ways computer vision technology can increase road safety for pedestrians and drivers alike.
• Agriculture: data collection, computer vision, and weather prediction will all begin to play a larger role in agricultural efforts to increase yields and decrease financial loss. By deploying complex data analytical models, the prediction and causation of weather can play a large part in supplying the world with its food.
• Entertainment: while it may not seem significant, the entertainment industry has already seen the implementation of AI advances for aging actors up or down (and, in some cases, to be able to finish films with them in it after they have died). This will become more normative as the entertainment industry uses advancements in AI tech to increase the fidelity of CGI on human faces.
• Service Industries: ChatGPT displayed one potential use case for service industries that generate copy and content as part of their services, but AI advances that can reduce production time are already on the rise in the food service industry as well.

While there are dozens of other important industries that have seen AI advancements that will have an impact on the general public, the ones covered here are just the tip of the iceberg.

What are the Latest Advances in AI?

Some of these advances in AI are more recent than others, but all of these are current up to 2020, which saw a huge spike in AI advancements. Each of these has had a specific impact on society in general or will have larger impacts as time goes on.

1. Natural Language Processing (Ever-Improving AI Assistants)

For both language generation and speech recognition there have been incredible AI advances that have allowed the technology many people interact with daily to evolve. From Amazon Alexa to Apple’s Siri, many people interact with some type of technology that is listening to them and generating either a speech response or triggering an action almost daily. Natural Language Processing was once a fantasy is now coming to life with conversational AI.

2. Chatbots and Other Virtual Engagement (ChatGPT and Google’s Bard)

AI chatbots are nothing new, but the technology has evolved significantly in recent months and years. Many mundane questions being asked by customers are able to be answered with the aid of a chatbot, reducing the interaction customers have with employees. While this can sometimes be helpful for both employees and customers, it also has the negative effect of making people feel more isolated. Good or bad, this ever-evolving AI advancement is at the forefront of our digital landscape. The use of AI can dissociate the business from the consumer; it is important to realize that personability is something our AI chatbots do not have, and all our actions should still have the human touch.

3. Computer Vision and Image Classification (Self-Driving Cars & Road Safety)

Some of the most recent advancements in AI that have the most impact lie in the field of computer vision or image classification. The most common way that people interact with computer vision is with facial recognition. For example, China uses facial recognition as a primary method of verifying payment and confirming identity for security purposes. Industries like public safety are even working on taking full advantage of these AI advances to be able to keep track of public threats, assess potentially violent situations before they arise, and even identify criminals who may be avoiding law enforcement.

4. Medical Diagnosis (Big Data For Compiling Possible Diagnoses)

As mentioned earlier, the health and medical field has some of the most incredible advancements in AI because there is a need to continually fight to keep people healthy. There are AI programs being created, even as recently as 2022, to help doctors and medical professionals assess patients with complicated medical diagnoses and identify underlying problems the human eye cannot detect. This gives doctors more reliability, time, and tools to treat patients with the most comprehensive care.

5. Augmented Reality and Virtual Production (De-Aging and Deep Fakes)

The entertainment industry can span everything from TV shows to video games, and there are constantly AI advances being added into the industry as standard operating procedures. We mentioned the ability to create “deep fakes” of actors who aren’t even physically in a film. Object detection and computer vision can also aid the process of motion capture, driving the production of films and video games to the next level. There is also the ability to create augmented reality and virtual reality games and movies with in-game content and NPCs that are powered by AI to behave more humanely and become more responsive than just their linear coding.

Looking For More Information On AI Advances?

Artificial intelligence is advancing on an exponential growth curve. With each passing year, humans are able to create AI that can do more and greater tasks that are absolutely amazing. The fear of AI replacing us should only drive innovation to harness artificial intelligence. If you are asking yourself how to implement AI or start building your own AI workstations, then we would love to help! 

And, if you think we glossed over or missed something huge, then we would like to know about that, too. You can contact us for any questions or see other articles related to AI advances, or a plethora of other topics, over on our blog.