Get ready for the year ahead in AI

JUST BEFORE CHATGPT WAS PLACED BEFORE THE PUBLIC in November 2022, OpenAI's head of sales was informed that the company would be quietly releasing a "low-key research preview," which wouldn't affect sales. Over 180 million users later, it's fair to say that forecasting the world of AI is difficult.

- WILL HENSHALL

But it wasn't only ChatGPT's success that was hard to foresee. An escalating AI race between companies and between countries; a U.S. Senate forum on the topic of "Doomsday Scenarios"; a dramatic boardroom ouster at the world's most prominent AI company-these events would have been extremely difficult to anticipate a year ago.

AI's rapid technological advancement and the wild and varied reactions to it-make predicting the future of the field not for the weak of heart. But TIME spoke with five experts, who, undaunted by the task, bravely shared their ideas about the year ahead in AI.

ELECTRICITY-HUNGRY DATA CENTERS

In 2023, the semiconductor-chip shortage became the first physical manifestation of the AI boom. In 2024, electricity demands will become the second, predicts Dan Hendrycks, executive director of the Center for AI Safety, a San Francisco-based nonprofit.

Data centers account for roughly 1% of the world's electricity usage. In Ireland-which large tech companies favor partly for its low tax rates-data centers use almost a fifth of all electricity. Around 20% of global data-center capacity is currently used for AI. This proportion is likely to increase sharply in 2024, as AI systems are trained and run on ever larger amounts of computational power.

Companies will try, and indeed are already trying, to make deals with governments to secure a power supply, Hendrycks suggests. "You need the support of the government in some capacity to be getting that level of electricity. I won't say who, but some of these AI companies will speak with leaders of these states and try and make agreements about energy, because their energy needs will just keep growing so substantially."