Reporting notes from the AI trenches, 2023 edition
It was 12 months of hype and hope, fear and FOMO, thoughts and trends. I learned a lot and was humbled even more.
As a writer, I’ve never been that organized. I’ve tried story idea charts, editorial calendars, workflow boards — but I usually end up with half-filled documents and wildly-messy notes.
But the pace of AI news in 2023 was so fast and furious that even my sorry efforts at systems felt useless, like sitting at the ocean’s edge with a plastic bucket watching an incoming tsunami. As my inbox filled up each week and the AI universe went through continual waves of releases, launches, debuts, papers, announcements, fundraising rounds, layoffs, open letters, manifestos and dramatic social media beefs, I finally gave up and decided to give in to the ‘whelm’ in ‘overwhelm.’
I let the weekly flow of AI news simply wash over me and I observed the shapes it left in the storytelling sand. I spoke to hundreds of people and felt humbled by the constant shifts in patterns, perspective, and power I discovered — kind of like the various sand ripples that form every day on the beach in St. Augustine, Florida, where I’ve been spending part of each winter for the past eight years.
As it turned out, every month, and even every week of AI news seemed to have its own its own shape or symbol, forming into a solid theme I could dig into and expand on, then morphing into another configuration with trends that needed to be examined and analyzed.
Here’s how each month in 2023 appeared to me — how did they seem to you?
JANUARY: Pressure, confusion and salivating over the possibilities of generative AI
What’s Google gonna do?
What’s happening to the workplace?
What will happen in academia?
OMG what is the deal with art
The killer enterprise use case
FEBRUARY: Get ready for the AI arms race
The race to compete with OpenAI heats up
Google and Microsoft prepare dueling generative AI debuts
The ‘race starts today’
How Nvidia dominated AI — and plans to keep it that way
The hottest AI party is in productivity apps
MARCH: Who’s got the power in AI?
Yoshua Bengio weighs in on ChatGPT as ‘wake-up call’
Big Tech consolidates power in AI
OpenAI releases GPT-4
Anthropic introduces Claude
An open letter calls for AI ‘pause’
APRIL: AI risks are all the rage
Biden says US must address potential risks of AI
The threat of ‘industrial capture’
Open source AI has a moment and a fierce debate
Sam Altman hits the road to hype OpenAI
Buckle up for AI agents
MAY: Potential AI regulation under the spotlight
Sam Altman’s congressional testimony comes at a key AI moment
Calls for an AI regulatory agency
Artists deserve fairness and control
The White House National AI strategy
Six months of ChatGPT - the impact and fallout
JUNE: Rising doomer x-risk claims as AI development continues to speed up
Top AI researcher dismisses extinction risk fears
The thin line between AI doom and hype
Meta makes Llama commercially available
Inflection sets off fireworks with $1.3 billion funding
Next-level generative AI video with Runway
JULY: Strikes and lawsuits over AI are hot
A hot generative AI summer is here
Data scraping is under attack
Sarah Silverman’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Meta
Hollywood is on strike over AI
AI and Barbenheimer
AUGUST: GPU shortages and AI security — are we at peak of inflated expectations?
Coreweave makes billions from GPU cloud
GPU shortages is top gossip of Silicon Valley
DEFCON hackers to attack gen AI models
Gartner says AI hype cycle is headed towards a trough of disillusionment
Generative AI ‘spiraled out of control’
SEPTEMBER: Senate meets on AI while Big Tech AI goes mainstream
Senate closed-door AI Insight Forums begin
Everyone has an opinion on AI regulation
Amazon announces new gen AI version of Alexa
Microsoft AI Copilot for Windows is coming
Meta’s ‘universe of AI’
OCTOBER: AI disillusionment and anxiety picks up, plus an executive order
Why AI is teetering on the edge of a disillusionment cliff
Chorus of creative workers demands AI regulation
Goldman Sachs CIO is anxious to see results from GenAI
How Marc Andreessen is like Robert Moses
Biden AI exec order rolls out to applause, concerns of overreach
NOVEMBER: OpenAI OpenAI OpenAI OpenAI
What OpenAIs wave of releases says about 2024
OpenAI’s six-member board will decide ‘when we’ve attained AGI
OpenAI’s board: From safety to mutiny
OpenAI, Q* and the anxiety of AI hype
ChatGPT’s 1-year anniversary: how it changed the world
DECEMBER: To be determined (yes, yes, the EU AI Act and Mistral) but please, can we take a break??
Awesome details, that’s quite the overview and much appreciated. I work in the compliance and security realm GRC of a start up company in the logistics arena and it’s been crazy trying to stay ahead to ensure we’re protected from an internal use standpoint to third party vendors who are now baking AI into just about everything. So that EU AI legislation is going to be more welcome than not for think. It will be similar to GDPR and may cause US States to individually address it too.