AI experts reveal 2024 predictions: hype drop & increased scrutiny

Top experts in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), Adi Andrei of Technosophics, Ali Chaudhry from Veracious, and Juras Juršnas from Oxylabs, have unveiled their AI predictions for 2024, which include a greater scrutiny in AI adoption by companies, an ongoing disruption in multiple sectors due to Gen AI-powered applications, the advancement of regulation around AI and web data collection, and a foreseeable significant reduction in generative AI hype.

After decades of AI and machine learning (ML) research conducted within scientific communities, these technologies have suddenly become the most sought-after consumer-facing solutions. Massive recent breakthroughs have occurred around generative AI (Gen AI), which is based on large language models (LLMs) and other types of transformer models. Despite this, Andrei and Chaudhry - who are notable AI experts and members of the AI/ML advisory board at Oxylabs - and Juršnas, its chief operating officer, have shared their insights on whether Gen AI can indeed instigate the radical changes that people are anticipating.

According to McKinsey's The State of AI, 2022 report, AI adoption has remained between 50% and 60% in recent years and has slightly declined since 2019. Adi Andrei, director at Technosophics and former head data scientist at NASA and Unilever, notes that many businesses are cautious about AI adoption, stating: "The economic situation makes companies more pragmatic when adopting new AI and data analytics systems. Boardrooms need proof that these investments will increase the bottom line. A lot of money and effort has been poured into monetizing Gen AI solutions, but the results are lacking."

Recent predictions from CSS Insight and Gartner have described generative AI as "overhyped" with a possible decline in public interest by 2024. Andrei concurs with these predictions, adding that "LLMs appear intelligent only on the surface — they are stochastic, meaning they don't have reason and function on statistical probability of different words following one another. Such superficial intelligence is not always valuable and reliable, and the industry is waking up to reality."

Despite this, Andrei believes some companies are swiftly pivoting towards "meaningful AI," which could be the next step in the evolution of Gen AI. However, achieving this is not straightforward and will require deeper thought to answer questions such as how we create meaning and what constitutes something as "meaningful".

Meanwhile, according to Ali Chaudhry, founder at Veracious and Generative AI Community in London, applications powered by Gen AI are already impacting various sectors – including healthcare, education, financial services, and supply chain management – and should continue to do so. He added that we could even see a growing investment in AI applications in the defense sector due to the ongoing global political climate.

Chaudhry speculates that the ML market will grow at an annual rate of 18.73% between 2023 and 2030, resulting in a market volume of $528 billion by 2030. He also anticipates progress in legal and institutional AI regulation, with an increased focus on ethical issues related to data privacy, AI bias, and AI misuse for criminal activities.

Lastly, Oxylabs' COO Juras Juršnas shared his predictions about Gen AI, stating that its wider implementation will largely depend on the providers' ability to serve these models as web-based APIs. Despite the predictions that the hype around Gen AI may reduce, Juršnas thinks that companies will still continue to implement it for routine tasks such as customer care chatbots, generating leads, collecting product feedback, or summarising video content.