HAS AI GOT AS INTELLIGENT AS IT'S GOING TO GET?

Generative AI burst into the public domain in 2022, with seemingly unlimited potential. But could its abilities be hitting a ceiling already?

- by CHRIS STOKEL WALKER

There are few events in technology that can be classed as true 'Big Bang' moments: times when our understanding of the world, and tech's place in it, shifts. The advent of the World Wide Web was one such 'before and after' moment. The release of the iPhone in 2007 was another, bringing about the smartphone revolution.

The November 2022 release of ChatGPT was a similarly seismic shift. Before that, artificial intelligence (AI) was something few people outside the tech world really knew or cared about. But the large language model (LLM) quickly became the fastest-growing app in history and kickstarted what we now call the 'generative AI revolution'.

Revolutions can't always sustain the same momentum, however. Three years on from the release of ChatGPT and despite the harrowing headlines about mass job displacement at the hands of AI, many of us still remain employed, and, reportedly, more than half of Brits have still never used an AI chatbot.

Whether the revolution has stalled is debatable, but even AI's keenest disciples suggest things aren't moving as quickly as expected. So, is AI as intelligent as it's ever going to get?

WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE ANYWAY?

The question of whether AI's intelligence has plateaued depends on your definition of the word 'intelligent', reckons Catherine Flick, professor of AI ethics at Staffordshire University. “In my opinion, AI is not actually intelligent at all, but a programmatic ability to respond to human questions with intelligent-seeming responses,” she says.

For her, the answer to whether AI has become as intelligent as it can is yes – because it never was and never can be.

“All that can happen is that we could get better at programming these tools to return an evermore-deceptive simulacrum of intelligence. But the underlying ability to think, experience and reflect will forever be off-limits to artificial agents,” she says.