OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT captured the world's attention, marking the fastest-growing user base of any app...ever. Chat GPT's ability to use large-language models (LLMs) to generate human-quality text, translate languages, and answer questions in natural language, proved that AI products are able to perform many tasks previously thought to be the exclusive domain of humans.
But AI has a more expansive scope and longer history than just chatbots popularized this year. Since the 1950s, scientists and engineers have been developing AI for use in myriad civilian and military applications. The banking industry has deployed machine learning to improve fraud detection, this unlocking the growth of e-commerce. Russia's invasion of Ukraine upended global food supply chains, but AI tools in the agriculture industry have been used to improve crop yields, optimize irrigation, and manage pests.
For the first time in our evolution, the solutions we bring to bear to humanity's challenges aren't bound by human reason. The patterns that AI can discern and develop elude human perception, but they can still be used to solve real problems.
In 2020, AI-powered researched led to the creation of a new antibiotic able to kill previously resistant strains of bacteria. The AI used surveyed a library of 61,000 molecules and correctly identified the single compound that would be effective and non-toxic. The compound was named Halicin, a reference to the AI named 'HAL' in the film 2001: A SpaceOdyssey.
