How Far Will AI Chatbots Go in 2024?

Lots of promises are being made with regard to AI Chatbots, setting up sky-high expectations.

Last November, when Sam Altman was asked what surprises the field would bring in 2024, he said that online chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT will take “a leap forward that no one expected.”

It is expected that A.I.-powered image generators like DALL-E and Midjourney will soon be able to instantly deliver videos as well as still images. These players will gradually merge with chatbots like ChatGPT. Chatbots will expand well beyond digital text by handling photos, videos, diagrams, charts and other media. They will exhibit behavior that looks more like human reasoning, tackling increasingly complex tasks in fields like math and science. As the AI technology moves into robots, chatbots will also help to solve problems beyond the digital world.

AI is being advanced very quickly by tech companies like OpenAI, Google since AI technology relies on neural networks, mathematical systems that can learn skills by analyzing digital data. By pinpointing patterns in data such as Wikipedia articles, books and digital text culled from the internet, a neural network can learn to generate text on its own. In comparison, most software apps are created by writing code, one line of computer code at a time, which is a slow and tedious process.

A.I. is expected to take a leap forward since chatbots are getting better at “reasoning”, which allows them handle more complex tasks, such as generating detailed computer programs and solving complicated math problems.

(Some) humans have the ability to carefully and logically solve problems through a series of discrete steps, each one building on the next. Can chatbots be trained to do this? Scientists disagree on whether chatbots can truly reason in the same manner. Some scientists argue that these systems merely seem to reason as they repeat behavior they have seen in internet data.  As they learn to reason, Chatbots will transform into a new kind of autonomous system called an A.I. agent. An A.I Agent is a chatbot that can use software apps, websites and other online tools, including spreadsheets, online calendars and travel sites. In an ideal world, all tedious work will be done by chatbots leaving humans free to do the creative bits. However, these A.I. Agents are bound to steal human jobs.

Chatbots already operate as agents in small ways even now. Chatbots can schedule meetings, edit files, analyze data and build bar charts. But these tools do not always work as well as they need to. Agents break down entirely when applied to more complex tasks.

In 2024, A.I. companies are likely to unveil agents that are more reliable.  They might be able to keep track of expenses in an app like QuickBooks or logging vacation days in an app like Workday. This will take AI beyond software and internet services and into the world of robotics.

At present, robots merely perform tasks they have been programmed to perform. They do the same task over and over again, such as picking up boxes of the same size and shape. This will change soon.  Just as chatbots can learn to predict the next word in a sentence by analyzing vast amounts of digital text, a robot can learn to predict what will happen in the physical world by analyzing countless videos of objects being prodded, lifted and moved.

Be prepared for the brave new world of AI Agents and Smart Robots!