By Kevin Olson
It seems like every month, there’s a new AI model that’s faster, smarter, and more human-like than the last. AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have been releasing new AI models every few weeks or months, and model releases are only becoming more and more frequent. These businesses have begun using previous models to write the code and train the new ones, so they improve exponentially with every new release. Not only are these newer versions more efficient, but they are scarily becoming increasingly human-like.
According to Matt Shumer’s February article Something Big is Coming, recent models are “making intelligent decisions” and have the “inexplicable sense of knowing what the right call is that people always said AI would never have.” This is something that impacts everyone, whether or not you plan to work in tech. Rather than making tasks like computation and writing code faster, AI is now able to eliminate the need for human oversight for certain tasks. AI is doing better than humans at jobs throughout fields like medicine, law, consulting, analysis, and accounting. So, no matter what industry you plan to go into, AI will surely be a big part of it by the time you graduate college.
As well as reshaping our lives, AI growth is profoundly transforming the globe at a rapid pace.
The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI has stated that AI is now fuelling a potential 30% annual growth in gross world product by 2100 by automating tasks in manufacturing, finance, and customer service, revolutionizing the global economy. Furthermore, with global spending on AI predicted to exceed $500 billion by 2027, the environment will soon see the consequences. Global AI-related water usage is projected to reach 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters by the end of 2026, which, whether or not you use AI, is sure to impact you at some point.