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Concordia Winter 2024

18

Artificial Intelligence in the AI Era

Russell Fishman (1990–1995) is Senior Director, Global Head of Solutions Product Management, at NetApp, an American-based software developer. He specialises in advising clients in AI, virtualisation and modern workloads.

advancement in computational power, made famous by companies like NVIDIA. Hugely powerful, accelerated computing solutions (such as Graphics Processing Units, or GPUs), when deployed together at scale, have the ability to use enormous volumes of digital data to train neural networks (more commonly referred to as models) through a technique called Machine Learning. These models are then used either to forecast future events and outcomes (Predictive AI) or to create new content using natural language (Generative AI, or GenAI). We have already experienced the impact of Predictive AI in various aspects of our lives, perhaps unaware that it was playing a role. Some of the more visible examples include

Whether online, on television or in print, Artificial Intelligence is saturating the media. Given this rapid rise in coverage, the infiltration of these new technologies into our daily lives and the reaction of the capital markets, most people might assume that AI is a relatively recent invention. However, it has been almost 70 years since modern AI research was born at a Dartmouth College workshop, and the original concepts of self-operating machines and artificial beings in fact go back to classical antiquity and the poets Hesiod and Homer. One might ask why in 2024 we find ourselves in what some term the ‘AI Era’? It has resulted from the convergence of a number of factors, but the most important has been the rapid