Artificial intelligence will be capable of producing higher-quality "digital humans" and could use more energy than the entire global workforce by 2025, according to experts.
Brian Comiskey, the Director of Thematic Programs for the Consumer Technology Association, revealed the trade association had developed an artificial intelligence working group to navigate the new technology. With his time in thematic indexing, Comiskey noted that "responsible AI" is a growing buzzword in the financial space and has become an increasing priority for leaders across various industries.
By 2025, without sustainable AI practices, AI will consume more energy than the human workforce, significantly offsetting carbon-zero gains, according to Gartner's research for their 2023 strategic predictions.
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"The energy consumption by AI is growing rapidly along with increasing use to automate human activities. Machine learning (ML) models need to be trained and executed, which requires more cloud data centers," contributor Lori Perri wrote. "Practices are emerging in order to significantly reduce energy consumption for ML. Before dismissing AI as a technology that consumes too much energy, note that the benefits of AI may potentially far outweigh its own footprint. However, this potential can only be realized if AI is proactively and effectively applied in as many processes, companies and organizations as possible."
Comiskey said this claim helps to reaffirm the environmental focus and guideline standards coming into play, where clients, especially overseas, are wondering not just how to standardize the tech but are also questioning how markets are building in financial investment vehicles to help ensure companies are investing in innovation.
"That's the most important thing," Comiskey said. "We want to invest in innovation in our space. But is there a way to layer in a responsibility around, are we building this at the right pace ethically as well as from an environmental impact and other environmental, social and governance (ESG) sort of concerns?"
Comiskey said he anticipates a greater focus from companies on hiring people who can communicate with AI effectively, but also employees who can communicate the benefits and challenges of AI well to those without a technical background.
A recent Stanford University AI index report found 2% of all total job postings are for AI and machine learning. Comiskey said companies expect to hire a large swathe of other people for AI integration, including those experienced in natural language processing, robotics and AI-powered search mechanisms.
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To eliminate biases and minimize risk in existing models, Comiskey said companies will need to build a team that is reflective of the overall racial and ethnic makeup of the U.S. Only 27% of AI teams in the country incorporate women and only 25% have racial or ethnic minorities on the team.
Companies are also likely to expand their focus on cybersecurity. While ChatGPT and other AI chatbots can automate and help facilitate a more sophisticated scale, companies can benefit from implementing AI into their existing cybersecurity strategies, Comiskey said.
According to an August 2022 IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, companies with fully deployed security AI and automation systems save $3.05 million per data breach on average compared to those without.
Comiskey also anticipates the development of more in-house large language models tailored to the individual goals of the company, as well as the creation of new enterprises offering their own AI models.
"When you're talking about things like health data, financial data, when we work on a project, I'm sure we would have to consider how do we keep the data that's important to us behind closed doors. So, I think you'll see a lot of companies building their own model, but also the rise of companies that specialize in creating consulting services around customized private labs," he said.
AI also has the potential to produce higher quality "digital humans," a natural evolution of using chatbots to create full avatars of real people. For example, a South Korea-based company Deepbrain AI helped propel the country's new President, Yoon Suk-yeol, to victory. In early 2022, Suk-yeol used videos that featured an AI-generated video of himself to engage voters, making clear that citizens were watching a computer-generated image (CGI).
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Comiskey said the idea could help companies and politicians engage better with young consumers and voters, describing it as a likely common output for AI in the long run.
He also noted that AI has many other potential future capabilities, such as the opportunity for a "virtuous circle" wherein AI accelerates and improves the chips that help to power the technology in the first place. Furthermore, AI could be integral in sifting through the massive amounts of data produced daily, ultimately improving the e-commerce and entertainment space and moving closer to the needs of consumers.
Rhonda Vetere, the CEO of Global Impact and a world-renowned CIO/CTO, told Fox News Digital that AI in the future could lead to greater innovation and productivity to solve complex problems. Still, people could risk being manipulated by an output that persuades or guides conversation if not properly understood.
"We have all heard of AI passing the bar exam. How AI is deployed and enables bad behavior is a concern. Is AI here, yes, and in my humble opinion, we should have a think tank across industry leaders to ensure we all understand the true capabilities and red flags," Vetere said. "This will also ensure success. Instead of everyone racing to roll out AI capabilities, I would like for us to take a step back and ask, do we really understand the deep learning model calculations, outputs and ramifications?"
Vetere also suggested that AI should be regulated at the government level, similarly to how audits are done in the financial sector, to balance innovation with risks.
"Businesses will take advantage of the productivity generated by AI to manage repetitive tasks and reduce inefficiencies, but leaders need to remember corporate success is predicated on great teams and the importance of leadership recognizing the work of people over machines," Vetere said.
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She added that AI will make the spread of information faster and further increase productivity if used correctly.
"Expect there to be a tech clash and a race to the innovation finish line," Vetere predicted.
David Espindola, a digital technology entrepreneur and the author of "Soulful: You in the Future of Artificial Intelligence," told Fox News Digital that he believes AI will impact all industries and all companies.
"From a startup standpoint, you know, what we're seeing from AI is really quite remarkable. Just the number of startups that have come up recently. You know, there are over 1,000 startups working on AI specific applications that just came up in the last few months," Espindola said. "I've been in this industry for more than 30 years. I've never seen anything with this velocity and this volume of business opportunities."
"In my opinion, this is bigger than the Internet. I mean, this is the big one," he added.
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In terms of a large corporation, Espindola said AI will be very helpful in product development and research, enabling employees to understand the science behind their output and how to solve various problems.
He added that AI will have a remarkable impact on creating new entertainment and digital assets.
"I just came from a couple of meetings yesterday with people that are in the communications and content creation business. And the impact is just incredible," Espindola said. "With AI, I think these organizations will be able to much more quickly do the things that they've always done. But, you know, without AI, a typical content creation process might take four hours, five hours, six hours. With AI, they can do some of the same things in 30 minutes or less."
Speaking to the economy and employment, Espindola agrees with experts who believe that AI will eventually increase GDP and create new jobs. However, he predicts that the number of jobs reduced will outweigh the number of jobs created, especially in fields like software development.
"I think it will lead to technical unemployment. I think it's unavoidable," he said.
AI will also have a marketed impact on the productivity of the average person, freeing them up to engage in things that interest them, as opposed to repetitive rudimentary tasks, Espindola said.
According to research, people's attention spans have decreased over the last 15 years, from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8.25 seconds in 2015.
Espindola said that, in the short term, with the volume of information available online, he believes people's attention spans will continue to become shorter and shorter. But, in the long term, AI will do most or all of the manual or passionless work for people.
"We can use different skill sets like lateral thinking, which is the ability to really connect the dots from different domains. So, it will become our experts, if you will, and then the humans will have to develop the ability to ask the right questions of AI and then connect the dots in a way that you can synthesize that information in a cohesive story and a cohesive output. So, I think in the short term, we're going to become even busier than we already are and it's going to be even crazier than it is today," he said.
"But in the long term, things should eventually settle. And, you know, I think we'll have more time to do the things that we enjoy."
