Generative AI's wild 2023

investing.com:

By Kenneth Li

(Reuters) — ChatGPT was well on its way to becoming a household name even before 2023 kicked off.

Just weeks after the Nov. 30 launch of the generative artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, OpenAI, the non-profit behind ChatGPT, was projected to rake in as much as  $1 billion in revenue in 2024, sources told Reuters at the time.

The so-called large language model's ability to turn prompts into poetry, song, and high school essays enchanted 100 million users within two months, accomplishing what took Facebook (NASDAQ:META) four and a half years and Twitter five in becoming the fastest growing consumer app ever. 

Sometimes, the answers were wrong, despite being delivered with conviction. This happened often enough that “hallucinate,” in the sense of AI producing wrong information, was selected as Dictionary.com’s word of the year, owing to the technology’s deep impressions on society.

Such mistakes did not sap the euphoria or stop the existential dread this new technology inspired. Investors, led by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)'s multibillion dollar bet on OpenAI, injected $27 billion into generative AI startups in 2023, according to Pitchbook. The battle for AI supremacy, stewing in the background between big tech firms for years, was suddenly in focus with Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Meta and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) all announcing new milestones. 

By March, thousands of scientists and AI experts, including Elon Musk, signed an open letter demanding a pause to training more powerful systems to study their impact on, and potential danger to, humanity. The move drew parallels to “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s box office hit about the titular atomic bomb maker’s warnings that the relentless pursuit of progress