The commercialization of AI research is also leading to less diversity in the field, with labs focusing more on research with direct commercial applications. This could overshadow other areas of research that might provide long-term breakthroughs. The current environment also risks a brain drain towards big tech, as these companies can offer high salaries to top AI researchers. Despite these challenges, the open-source community is making progress with a range of open-source language models and research in areas other than language models.
Key takeaways:
- Big tech companies and venture capitalists are investing heavily in AI labs that are creating generative models, with Amazon investing $4 billion in AI lab Anthropic and Microsoft investing $10 billion in OpenAI.
- These partnerships provide AI labs with the resources they need to train their models, but also have implications for the future of AI research, including less transparency and more secrecy.
- As AI labs become more commercialized, there may be less diversity in AI research, with a focus on research with direct commercial applications at the expense of other areas of research.
- The open-source community is making progress in parallel with closed-source AI services, with promising research in areas other than language models, such as liquid neural networks and neuro-symbolic AI.