Making AI work for you

Technological breakthroughs don't always live up to the hype.

- AMBI PARAMESWARAN

A decade ago, we were told that 3D printing will replace manufacturing of many types of products. A company even demonstrated building a house using a 3D printer. But we are still buying and using products made in factories. Yes, 3D printers have become more and more affordable and in consumer products marketing most designers use 3D printers to create prototypes, instead of wood or plastic moulds.

Virtual reality and artificial reality, too, seem to have not grown the way they were supposed to take over our real world. IoT, or internet of things, has had a slow start but we are seeing more of it everywhere. I was impressed that a B School in Mumbai is using this technology to issue books to students. But has it taken over our world? Have refrigerators started ordering for milk, bread and eggs, as they were supposed to? No, not yet.

In contrast AI, especially generative AI, has had a great start. And a lot of it is not just hype. ChatGPT, from its late 2022 launch, now boasts of more than 700 million worldwide users. In India, too, ChatGPT has had a great beginning.

So have all the other GenAI platforms like Gemini, Perplexity, CoPilot, Claude and others.

There is widespread fear that ChatGPT and its ilk will replace humans causing widespread job losses.