The 2024 AI Index presents the most in-depth analysis yet, capturing AI’s sharp societal impact. Enhanced to capture key trends, it illuminates AI progress, public sentiment, and the geopolitical climate of AI evolution.
Uneven AI Progress
AI outshines humans in tasks like image and language recognition but falls short in high-level challenges, such as competition-level mathematics, visual commonsense reasoning.
Figure 2.1.16
Private sector leads AI research frontiers
This past year saw industry produce 51 major machine learning models, contrasting with academia’s 15. Collaborations between the two peaked at 21 models.
Figure 1.3.1
Cutting-edge AI model costs surge
AI training expenses have surged. Case in point: OpenAI’s GPT-4 tallied $78 million in compute costs, with Google’s Gemini Ultra at a staggering $191 million.
Figure 1.3.21
U.S. Leads AI Model Production
With 61 remarkable AI models in 2023, the U.S. significantly outstripping the EU’s 21 and China’s 15.
Figure 1.3.2
Lack of standardized evaluations for responsible AI
The AI Index uncovers a worrying lack of standardized benchmarks, with leading AI developers like OpenAI and Google following diverse reporting practices, hindering risk assessments of AI models.
Generative AI investment hits new heights
Generative AI investment defied the downturn in overall AI investment, leaping to $25.2 billion in 2023 — an almost eightfold increase from 2022.
Figure 4.3.3
AI boosts workplace performance
Studies in 2023 suggest AI helps workers perform better and faster, potentially narrowing the skill gap. However, evidence also indicates the potential for AI misuse to hinder performance.
AI’s scientific contributions expand
2023 witnessed AI driving scientific breakthroughs further with tools like AlphaDev and GNoME revolutionizing research efficiency and material discovery.
U.S. AI Regulation Rises Sharply
AI-related legislative actions in the U.S. have climbed from one in 2016 to 25 in 2023 — a jump of over 56% from the previous year alone.
Figure 7.2.1
Growing AI awareness and anxiety
Global awareness of AI’s looming impact has increased, with a notable rise in apprehension about AI — 52% of Americans are now more concerned than excited, a 14% increase from 2022.
Figure 9.1.3
For a deeper dive into the findings and what they mean for the future of AI, refer to the full AI Index 2024 report.