The impact and evolution of artificial intelligence is reported year after year by a research called AI Index. In its latest report, it reported, among other things, a huge increase in the number of AI jobs, degrees and private investment.
The 9 points below give a good summary of the AI situation as outlined by AI Index. The survey covers the US, but the trends there can be used as a forecast for other parts of the world, including the AI world in Hungary.
- AI job ads – What are the most in-demand areas? There has been a significant increase in the number of AI-related job advertisements. Machine learning was the keyword with the highest share of AI job advertisements (0.6% of all job advertisements), followed by artificial intelligence (0.33%), neural networks (0.16%) and natural language processing (0.13%).
- Where do artificial intelligence experts work? The last 10 years show that more and more people are obtaining PhDs in artificial intelligence. In the US, the majority are heading towards industry, while a small proportion are taking up government jobs.
- Less relevant here in Hungary, but important to note, is that the distribution of US residents with doctorates in AI by race is very unequal: non-Hispanic whites and Asians are vastly overrepresented compared to Afro-American and Hispanic AI doctoral students.
- A boom in private investment: While $93.5 billion of private investment was made in 2020, around double that amount was spent in 2021.
- Where is the focus of research in artificial intelligence? It is interesting to note that many scientists are focusing on the basic technology of AI, i.e. pattern recognition and machine learning itself. Publications in these two areas have more than doubled since 2015. Other areas heavily influenced by deep learning, such as computer vision, data mining and natural language processing, have seen smaller increases.
- AI patents: The number of patents filed in 2021 was 30 times higher than in 2015. This represents an annual growth rate of 76.9%.
- Robots for everyone? Robotics is becoming more accessible and affordable. According to the AI Index survey, the median price of robotic arms has fallen by 46.2% – from $42,000 in 2017 to $22,600 in 2021.
- Fairness, Accountability and Transparency. In this context, these concepts mean that the decisions we make with the help of AI should be fair, that there should always be accountability for the operation of AI systems, and that these systems should operate transparently. There is a huge interest in these issues and researchers are trying to focus on these properties, so much that, for example, the ACM FAccT conference – specialised on this topic specifically – invites research on these aspects.
- US politics is beginning to show interest in artificial intelligence. While in 2015 only one AI bill was introduced, in 2021 there were 130 bills on the table. And that number is still only a fraction of the bills proposed.
The original English article can be found at:
https://hai.stanford.edu/news/state-ai-9-charts
Cover photo: hai.stanford.edu
