About AI and the New Information Age

In 2019, GPT-2 could not reliably count to ten. Only four years later, deep learning systems can write software, generate photorealistic scenes on demand, advise on intellectual topics, and combine language and image processing to steer robots. As AI developers scale these systems, unforeseen abilities and behaviors emerge spontaneously without explicit programming. Progress in AI has been swift and, to many, surprising.

—  Managing AI Risks in an Era of Rapid Progress, Bengio, Hinton, et al.

Along with rapid advancements in AI research, there are increasing concerns. Many concerns stem from a growing disconnect between the technology-centric approach to the creation of AI technologies and their inextricable embedding into complex personal, social, and cultural contexts. The theme of the Spring 2024 Design@Large is AI and the New Information Age. A primary focus is designing information spaces, places that foster thinking, in this new information age.