Bah, Humbug! A Christmas quiz for GenAI sceptics

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. As we drift toward the twinkling end of this year, one can almost taste the festive air. In this last piece of the year, let’s look at how GenAI space has progressed in 2024.

The approaching year is sure to come with its own well-choreographed drama. Like the falling snow in Finnish December, markets are certain to descend from lofty heights at some point next year. And when they do, the pundits—GenAI sceptics—will be emboldened by every dip to parade their arguments adjusted for developments they may not have expected.

These proclamations, which will echo in the halls of digital media during the bear phases, will revolve around the theme that GenAI is nothing but a bubble about to burst. Fundamentally, they will revolve around perceived capability shortfalls, insufficient use cases, overzealous investment, stagnating model improvements, or perhaps the ever-controversial valuations. While such articles are as inevitable as the holiday season, those who harbour doubts might find the quiz below useful.

It might just offer a moment of reflection. During future moments of dread, these questions may help settle at least one doubt: GenAI is not a hoax. It has impressive use cases and staggering utility.

Here goes the quiz. Each question addresses recent advances in large language models (LLMs) and their cousins—transformers, generative agents—across a multitude of fields, from weather forecasting to medical diagnostics, robotics to drug discovery, and well beyond. At present (late 2024), approximately how many individuals worldwide have used a Large Language Model (LLM) at least once? A.

Around 5 million B. Around 50 million C. Nearing a hundred million D.