Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is set for a “cold shower” in 2024 as costs associated with the technology increase and regulation stalls in the European Union, according to analyst firm CCS Insight.
The firm’s annual roundup of predictions for the future of the technology industry also includes forecasts that a search engine will soon add content warnings to alert users that material they are viewing is AI-generated, and that the first arrests for AI-based identity fraud will be made next year.
CCS Insight says that the hype around generative AI has become “overhyped” and that smaller developers of the technology will face challenges as it becomes “too expensive” to run.
Generative AI models rely on huge amounts of computing power to run the complex mathematical models that allow them to work. Companies have to acquire high-powered chips to run AI applications, and in the case of generative AI, it’s often advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) designed by U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia that large companies and small developers alike turn to run their AI workloads.
Now, more and more companies, including Amazon, Google, Alibaba, Meta, and reportedly OpenAI, are designing their own specific AI chips to run those AI programs on.
“Just the cost of deploying and sustaining generative AI is immense,” CCS Insight chief analyst Ben Wood told CNBC. “And it’s all very well for these massive companies to be doing it. But for many organizations, many developers, it’s just going to become too expensive.”
CCS Insight also predicts that AI regulation in the European Union will face obstacles. The EU will still be the first to introduce specific regulation for AI, but this will likely be revised and redrawn “multiple times” due to the speed of AI advancement, they said.
“Legislation is not finalized until late 2024, leaving industry to take the initial steps at self-regulation,” Wood predicted.
A search engine will soon add content warnings to alert users that material they are viewing from a certain web publisher is AI-generated rather than made by people, according to CCS Insight.
The sources for this piece include an article in CNBC.
