Preempting a generative Artificial Intel monopoly

• Published date: 05 February 2023
• Publication title: Gulf Times

ChatGPT, the new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by the San Francisco-based research laboratory OpenAI, has taken the world by storm. Already hailed as a milestone in the evolution of so-called large language models (LLMs), the world's most famous generative AI raises important questions about who controls this nascent market and whether these powerful technologies serve the public interest.

OpenAI's release of ChatGPT last November quickly became a global sensation, attracting millions of users and allegedly killing the student essay. It is able to answer questions in conversational English (along with some other languages) and perform other tasks, such as writing computer code.

The answers that ChatGPT provides are fluent and compelling. Despite its facility for language, however, it can sometimes make mistakes or generate factual falsehoods, a phenomenon known among AI researchers as 'hallucination.'

The fear of fabricated references has recently led several scientific journals to ban or restrict the use of ChatGPT and similar tools in academic papers. But while the chatbot might struggle with fact-checking, it is seemingly less prone to error when it comes to programming and can easily write efficient and elegant code.

For all its flaws, ChatGPT obviously represents a major technological breakthrough, which is why Microsoft recently announced a 'multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment' in OpenAI, reportedly amounting to $10bn, on top of the $1bn it had already committed to the company. Originally a nonprofit, OpenAI is now a for-profit corporation valued at $29bn. While it has pledged to cap its profits, its loose-fitting structure limits investors' returns to 10,000%.

ChatGPT is powered by a GPT-3, a powerful LLM trained on vast amounts of text to generate natural-sounding, human-like answers. While it is currently the world's most celebrated generative AI, other Big Tech companies such as Google and Meta have been developing their own versions. While it is still unclear how these chatbots will be monetised, a paid version of ChatGPT is reportedly forthcoming, with OpenAI projecting $1bn in revenues by 2024.

To be sure, bad actors could abuse these tools for various illicit schemes, such as sophisticated online scams or writing malware. But the technology's prospective applications, from coding to protein discovery, offer cause for optimism. McKinsey, for example, estimates that 50-60% of companies have already incorporated AI-powered...