Steph Wright, our Head of Scottish AI Alliance, takes a look back on 2023.

Here we are in December and it’s time to take stock of the year that has just gone. And what a year that has been!

2023 has definitely been the year of an AI summer. The end of 2022 saw text-to-image generators like DALL:E, Stable Diffusion, MidJourney and others capture our imagination but it also saw the launch of Chat-GPT, a chatbot built with Open AI’s large language model (LLM) GPT-3.5. And it was Chat-GPT that went on to dominate 2023’s news and conference agendas as well as popular discourse in 2023.

Not a week would go by in 2023 without some reference to Chat-GPT. It transformed AI from an abstract techie concept to something everyone could get their hands on and experience. AI become “real” for more people than ever before. LLMs, foundational models, hallucinations, frontier AI… all of these terms have become ubiquitous throughout the year.

However with Chat-GPT came the hype, the fear mongering and to a certain degree hysteria about all things AI. Attention grabbing headlines about existential threats and human extinction. An open letter signed by many experts was published in March asking for a pause in foundation models research brought with it claims of AGI i.e artificial general intelligence, the concept that science fiction in literature and cinema have proliferated for decades. Intelligent sentient machines taking over the world…. we all know the drill.

But once again, we need to stress, AGI does not exist. What is available today is not what you see in the cinema and there are still many who question whether that will ever be achieved. Instead, the goalposts on what constitutes AGI has shifted to accommodate redefinition and any goal that has to do that really needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

And then there is the focus on frontier AI, a concept that there is little agreement on. But essentially we are talking about speculative technologies. The focus on speculative technologies distracts from real and current challenges that need to be addressed. Focusing on existential risks from these speculative technologies can take away resources from issues that need to be dealt with right now and there are many! Disinformation, misinformation, bias, discrimination, environmental impact and contribution to the climate crisis.. these are just a few.

We’ve seen incredible advances, leaps in innovation and stories of transformational impact and cutting edge discoveries. But we’ve also seen stories of harms, of discrimination and of violation of rights. AI is not magic and it is not a magical solution to all problems. It can do a lot of good and be extremely clever at solving problems, if it indeed the right solution for the problem. The realities of the world of AI is complex and much more nuanced discussions than the oft seen binary scenarios are needed.

The regulation of AI has been the hot topic and the complexities involved in regulating such a wide ranging and rapidly developing set of technologies have proved challenging. But as we close out the year, there is light at the end of the tunnel as the EU AI Act passes another hurdle and moves closer to being real.

But all said and done, we need to not lose sight of the human. It’s easy to focus on the technology but we have to remember that there are people behind the technology making decisions, people that create the technology and people that are impacted by the technology. The more we remember that, the more we will be able to build a positive AI future for all.

So that’s my whistle-stop tour of the world of AI in 2023 but what have we been up to at the Scottish AI Alliance? Where do I even start? January seems only like last month whilst simultaneously seeming like an absolute age ago.

We went from launching the Scottish AI Register, to our fantastic second Scottish AI Summit (this time in Glasgow); from publishing our design principles for engagement around AI in Scotland, to announcing a new Chair for our Scottish AI Alliance Leadership Group; and there was of course the release of the annual State of AI Report.. all this was just by the end of March!

We then had the winning artist in our Uncanny Machines artist commission in partnership with the New Real, the report from the end of the first phase of our Children in AI project in partnership with the Children’s Parliament and the Alan Turing Institute, the launch of our free online course Living with AI, a partnership with CogX and the hosting of a Scotland showcase in London, and a great two days exhibiting at Data Summit. And in between all of the above, we’ve had fantastic guest blogs, podcasts, events and communities engagement and outreach sessions all across Scotland.

And we just this week announced our amazing two keynotes for the Scottish AI Summit 2024! Registrations will open in January 2024 and we have an amazing programme line up in store for you.

But that’s not all! Back in June, Richard Lochhead, the Minister for Small Business, Innovation, Tourism and Trade commissioned the Scottish AI Alliance Leadership Group to conduct an independent review and make recommendations on how Scotland can maximise the benefits of AI whilst minimising its risk and ensuring benefit for all.

Reflecting the Strategy’s vision, “trustworthy, ethical and inclusive” are the lenses focusing exploration of themes including People and Society, Public Sector, Business, Research, Leadership, Skills and Tech Infrastructure.

The Leadership Group recently considered the emerging recommendations and once these are crystallised they will be looking to hear what people from across Scotland think of them. So watch this space in the new year for details on how to contribute!

Until then, all of us at the Scottish AI Alliance wish you all a restful and festive holiday season and we look forward to engaging with you all in 2024!

*The images sprinkled throughout this article are from the fantastic Better Images of AI project.