AI pioneers predict another year of generative hype

AI might be the talk of CES this year, with dozens of panels and booths dedicated to its transformative capabilities—but then again, that was true of cryptocurrency and NFTs just a couple of years ago. Is generative tech destined for a similar crash?

That was the question posed to two luminaries of the AI space at CES on Tuesday: Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI and often called the “Godmother of AI,” and Andrew Ng, founder of Google Brain and adjunct professor at Stanford.

Neither said they see AI petering out anytime soon, despite some feelings in the industry that the hype might be nearing a ceiling.

“The business fundamentals of AI are stronger than ever,” Ng said. “Where we are today, I think even if AI makes no technological progress—it is going to make progress, but even if it doesn’t—there’s so many use cases all around the world to identify and build up the business fundamentals.”

Li said she “more or less” agreed, with the caveat that media coverage of the technology may come and go in waves of interest. The Stanford computer scientist, who is credited with helping to kick off the previous AI boom of the early 2010s through her work in computer vision, called large language models (LLMs) another “inflection point” for the field as a whole.

“This technology is here to stay. It’s here to be deepening into all vertical businesses and customer consumer experiences, and it is changing the very fabric of our societal, economic, and political landscape,” Li said.

Li and Ng also happened to be playing to a sympathetic crowd; dozens of hands shot up in response to an informal poll of audience members who felt bullish about the next year, while the more pessimistic option drew few if any arms in the air.

Shifting definitions: As for what exactly constitutes “generative AI,” Li and Ng agreed that they don’t always approve of how the term is used.

“That is an overloaded word. Every AI today, people call it generative AI,” Li said. “When Andrew and I started, we had very specific mathematical definitions of generative AI…that whole mathematical rigor is gone.”

On the NYT lawsuit: The pair also opined on a bombshell lawsuit in which the New York Times accused OpenAI and Microsoft of stealing copyrighted work to train their LLMs. Ng sided strongly with the tech companies.

“I felt that it was a very muddy argument,” he said. “I wish the New York Times lawyers were held to the same standard of clarity of journalists.”

But Li said the episode is representative of broader fights happening or to come between creators and AI purveyors.

“This impacts not only big players like the New York Times but little players like a single artist or photographer or music composer,” Li said. “And that whole ecosystem is being challenged, disrupted, as well as augmented by today’s generative AI technology. And we’re seeing that tension playing out.”