The battle of the Generative AIs

In recent times, there has been intense competition among different generative AI companies, with OpenAI leading the way and competitors like CoPilot, Gemini, and Meta AI trailing closely behind. However, as these tech companies continue to innovate new features, something fundamental seems to be missing from today’s generative AI. But what is this exactly?

Fair share of slipups

Despite the remarkable breakthroughs that each of these companies has brought to the table, each company had their fair share of slip-ups. When OpenAI released their new AI voice (named SKY), consumers immediately recognised that the voice of this AI was eerily similar to that of actress Scarlett Johansson's. OpenAI removed the voice option shortly after and even published a blog post denying all accusations of imitating the actress's voice.

Similarly, Google was in the hotseat when consumers realised that the answers their Gemini AI gave were generating nonsensical answers to its users. Consumers described many of the answers as strange, funny and some just plain wrong.

Perplexity.ai meanwhile was investigated by Wired and Forbes for allegedly stealing content from their media companies. It was reported that their AI also summarized these write-ups, sometimes incorrectly, for users of its AI search engine.

What Does Each Company Envision for the Future of AI?

While generative AI is still in its nacent stage, all the different companies seem to have different visions for their generative AI system. Safe Superintelligence Inc. revealed that they would be creating a safe and powerful AI system. Their new AI system will not only be smarter but will prioritize user safety above everything else.

OpenAI predicts that ChatGPT will eventually become more humanized and will be akin to a team mate, assisting its users just like a colleague would do. Their future ChatGPT will also have better reasoning and understanding, and will be capable of performing more complex tasks.

Anthropic has gone in a similar direction, envisioning its latest AI, Claude, to be funnier and better at understanding nuance and humor. Claude will be able to answer questions in easy-to-understand, human-like language, making it an ideal AI companion at work.

What Does the Future of AI Hold?

So, what does this mean for the future of generative AI? Are we looking at safer systems that can protect our privacy, or a more humanised system that would communicate naturally with a human? I believe it will be all of the above!

More importantly, we are hoping to see a more practical generative AI. This means a system that can be integrated into our workflows, helping us accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently. There is no doubt that the landscape of tomorrow where intelligent assistants will be an integral part of our world would be strange. The technical skills we once thought unique to us are now being outsourced to AI. But with our skills democratized, the barriers to innovation are lower than ever. More people can participate in creating solutions and building things that were once only in the hands of large corporations and specialized professionals. I believe our relationship with AI will always be collaborative. Sure, AI might be better and quicker at using tools than us, but that gives us the opportunity to focus on the bigger picture and utilize the tools that actually matter—our creativity, ingenuity, and human experience.