In only a handful of years, synthetic intelligence (AI) has reshaped how we predict and have interaction with the world. Generative AI has already remodeled our digital habits, changing into for a lot of a major, one-stop supply of knowledge. It’s remapping the office, the classroom, the halls of politics and even the material of tradition itself.
“AI didn’t simply change know-how; it modified human habits. And as soon as human habits modifications, society strikes at a wholly completely different velocity,” mentioned Simon Lee, CEO of Flitto, an AI-powered translation and stay interpretation supplier. His remarks got here Tuesday night on the Qatari ambassador’s residence in Seoul, in the course of the Corea Picture Communication Establishment’s (CICI) Korea CQ Discussion board.
Right this moment, the world has moved past fascination with the know-how’s promise. Leaders now need their corporations to stake early claims within the world AI race, with the hope of harnessing its energy. The competition to develop and command AI is not looming, however is totally underway.
This race spans each layer of know-how, Lee defined: {hardware}, algorithms and knowledge.
On the floor degree is {hardware}, such because the chips that make advanced AI fashions potential. Graphics processing models, or GPUs, allow AI to carry out large calculations concurrently. They’re what drove Nvidia to develop into a chip making large valued at $5 trillion at this time.
“Nations noticed Nvidia’s success, and they’re now attempting to develop their very own variations of this know-how — not full GPUs, however smaller, extra environment friendly chips known as NPUs,” he mentioned. These NPUs can run smaller AI fashions on compact gadgets like telephones with higher velocity and a fraction of vitality consumption, whereas GPUs stay important for powering large fashions.
In Korea, two startups — Rebellions and Furiosa AI — have emerged as robust contenders on this race.
As massive AI fashions have swept throughout the globe, a brand new concern has surfaced: many nations now depend upon large methods constructed by two superpowers, the USA and China.
“There’s at all times the worry that consumer knowledge may circulate again to these nations,” the CEO mentioned. “And since these fashions are skilled inside a selected tradition and worth system, their solutions naturally include cultural or political bias.”
That’s the reason many governments try to construct their very own nationwide AI fashions that mirror their languages, cultures, social norms and geopolitical realities.
“In brief, nations don’t simply wish to use AI anymore. They wish to form it, practice it on their very own knowledge and ensure it displays their very own values and nationwide priorities,” he added.
However the actuality is that not each nation can develop its personal basis mannequin, which calls for staggering computing energy, billions of information factors and immense monetary assets.
For that motive, some nations, together with Korea, are shifting their focus. Slightly than pouring all assets into large basis fashions, they’re investing in vertical AI, or methods tailor-made to particular industries and use instances.
“We might not invent each foundational know-how, however we will construct specialised functions and companies. And that is precisely why vertical AI is changing into so necessary,” Lee mentioned, noting that Flitto’s personal real-time multilingual AI interpretation service, designed particularly for worldwide conferences, is one such instance.
Lastly, there may be uncooked knowledge, which Lee calls “the one aspect that truly determines whether or not an AI succeeds or fails, but surprisingly, the one factor folks discuss concerning the least.”
The availability of high-quality, human-generated knowledge is shrinking quick. Some specialists estimate that by 2027, we could have exhausted almost all digital knowledge accessible for AI coaching. What’s going to we feed AI within the years to return, if it has already consumed the majority of humanity’s data? What stays earlier than it begins cannibalizing its personal outputs and collapsing underneath the load of recycled knowledge?
It’s an ongoing drawback with no clear answer, however the CEO argued that this knowledge scarcity ought to reframe how we take into consideration AI growth. “The objective of constructing AI is to generate new knowledge from human beings in order that we will practice that knowledge into our options,” he famous. “Flitto offers real-time interpretation for folks. Certain, it helps break down language boundaries, however our essential objective is to gather large quantities of human pronunciation, accents [and speech patterns] coming from every kind of individuals.”
That rising reservoir of information can then feed different AI-powered companies, from voice recognition to machine translation, that folks work together with of their day by day lives.
