What is Generative Artificial Intelligence?
Heard of Perplexity, ChatGPT or Google Bard? These are three of the most well-known examples of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI).
Many of us have interacted with "normal" AI in our lives, such as when we use a digital voice assistant like Siri, Google Assistant or Bixby. GAI however is a far more advanced and specialised subset of AI. GAI models are self-learning applications designed to automatically generate new creative content, such as text, software code, images, video, speech and even music.
The pyramid below helps to visualise the relationship between AI and GAI.
Applications of GAI are growing every day, and GAI itself may even become an entire industry in its own right. Have you wondered about GAI's impact on jobs and industries, such as those which could be negatively impacted? Or about how GAI could change teaching and the education sector? Read on below!
Recommended GAI Tools
Generative AI models are very expensive to create, as they are trained on enormous amounts of data. As a direct consequence, many GAI models like DALL.E 2 are paid services. However, there are free-to-use options available. Check them out using the tabs above!
Looking for other GAI models, or one which isn't available in Singapore yet? Try using Poe, a service which allows you to test out a wide variety of GAI, or Futuretools.
Bing Image Creator is a newly released, free to use Generative AI software to generate images. Try it out here.
Dreamstudio is a uncommon free-to-use GAI image generator. Simply enter a prompt and let it generate an image for you.
Text based AI tools are the most well known and accessible to almost all users. Besides ChatGPT and Google Bard, Perplexity is another popular service which unusually provides detailed citations to show where the information has been scraped from.
Copy.ai is a chatbot built on top of ChatGPT, specifically designed to assist with marketing and promotional work. It features a variety of pre-set templates to streamline the creation process. Copy.ai is free to use for individuals: try it out below!
Text based AI tools can correct code, but Amazon has a dedicated code generating chatbot available below. Do note that unlike the other tools listed here, some installation is required before this chatbot can be used.
Introductory Resources
Five things you really need to know about AI (5 minutes)
Terrified, excited or just bewildered by artificial intelligence? Here’s what you really need to know. Made by the BBC in partnership with the Open University.
Gartner Top of Mind video series
Interested in listening to more of Gartner's insights on GAI? Check out the video series using the link above, each is about 10 minutes in length.
Explained: Generative AI
How do powerful generative AI systems like ChatGPT work, and what makes them different from other types of artificial intelligence. Read MIT's primer on Generative AI here.
Training Resources
Interested to learn about GAI in a slightly more structured way? Why not try these short, one hour courses below from Google? All come with a shiny badge which will be displayed on your Google profile page upon completion!
Do note that courses five and after are intended for data professionals with some technical knowledge. More courses are available from LinkedIn Learning, further below.
- 1. Introduction to Generative AI This first course is an introduction to Generative AI by Dr Gwendolyn Stripling, an AI Technical Curriculum Developer at Google Cloud. It will make you learn what Generative AI is and how it’s applied. It begins with the basic concepts of data science (AI, Machine Learning, Deep Learning), and how Generative AI is different from these disciplines. Moreover, it explains the key concepts that surround Generative AI with very intuitive illustrations, such as transformers, hallucinations and Large Language Models.
- 2. Introduction to Large Language Models This second course aims to introduce what Language Models are at a high level. In particular, it gives examples of LLM applications, like text classification, question answering and document summarization. In the end, it shows the potential of Google’s Generative AI Development tools to build your applications with no code.
- 3. Introduction to Image Generation This third course focuses on explaining the most important diffusion models, a family of models that generate images. Some of the most promising approaches are Variational Autoencoders, Generative Adversarial Models and Autoregressive Models.
- 4. Attention Mechanism In this short course, you will learn more about the attention mechanism, which is a very important concept behind transformers and Large Language Models. It has enabled improving tasks, such as machine translation, text summarization and question answering. In particular, it shows how the attention mechanism works to solve the machine translation.
- 5. Transformer Models and BERT Model This course covers transformer architecture, which is an underlying concept behind the BERT model. After explaining the transformer, it gives an overview of BERT and how it’s applied to solve different tasks, such as single-sentence classification and question answering. Differently from the previous courses, the theory is accompanied by a laboratory, which requires prior knowledge of Python and TensorFlow.
- 6. Create Image Captioning Models This course aims to explain the Image Captioning Models, which are generative models that produce text captions by taking images as input. It exploits an encoder-decoder structure, attention mechanism and transformer to solve the task of predicting a caption for a given image. Like the previous course, there is also a laboratory to put the theory into practice. It is again oriented toward data professionals with prior knowledge in Python and Tensorflow.
- 7. Introduction to Generative AI Studio This last course introduces and explores Generative AI Studio. It starts by explaining again what Generative AI is and its use cases, such as code generation, information extraction and virtual assistance. After giving an overview of these core concepts, Google Cloud shows the tools that help on solving Generative AI tasks even without an AI background. One of these tools is Vertex AI, which is a platform that enables to manage the machine learning cycle, from building to the deployment of the machine model. This end-to-end platform includes two products, Generative AI Studio and Model Garden. The course is focused on explaining Generative AI Studio, which allows to build easily generative models with no code or low code.
Looking for something more comprehensive? Try out this free 7 hour course from Codecademy.
Looking for something shorter instead? Datacamp has two free, highly rated online courses available. Each is about one hour in length. Try them out below.
- Datacamp: Generative AI Concepts Discover how to begin responsibly leveraging generative AI. Learn how generative AI models are developed and how they will impact society moving forward.
- Datacamp: Introduction to ChatGPT Learn how to use ChatGPT. Discover best practices for writing prompts and explore common business use cases for the powerful AI tool.
LinkedIn Learning videos and reports
LinkedIn Learning provides access to bite-sized video courses covering business, creative skills and technology. To access the videos below, please first login to LinkedIn Learning using your respective login links.
- Generative AI and Workplace Transformation (27 mins) In this course, thought leader Charlene Li offers key insights on what some are calling the biggest change transformation in the knowledge worker era. Drawing from her own work with first movers and leaders across industries, Charlene dives into some of the key issues to consider, including: the impact on the work force and work force planning; job roles will go away, transform, or not be impacted; and emerging skill sets organizations will need to train for. She also presents her insights on how employees can still learn and thrive amidst the uncertainty. Charlene helps companies and their workers think through an AI first strategy and make sense of a plan to evolve successfully in an AI-powered world.
- How to Research and Write Using Generative AI Tools (75 mins) You’ve probably already heard about ChatGPT, but did you know it can make you better at your job? Join instructor Dave Birss for a crash course in generative AI and learn how to get started with prompt engineering for ChatGPT and other AI chatbots to upskill as a researcher and a writer.
- Future of Work Report: AI at Work The Future of Work Report: AI at Work uncovers the latest real-time trends we see around how AI is ushering in a new era of work, based on insights from over 950 million professionals worldwide.
Gartner
Gartner is an IT focused resource containing reports and case studies. Gartner has a large collection of advanced reports and introductory materials about GAI, some of which are listed below.
- Building a Value-Driving AI Strategy for Your Business Generative AI (GenAI) is one type of AI that executives suddenly want to try in their business, but to capture its value and manage risk in a sustainable way, executives need a sound, holistic and achievable AI strategy.
- Gartner Experts Answer the Top Generative AI Questions for Your Enterprise Gartner sees generative AI becoming a general-purpose technology with an impact similar to that of the steam engine, electricity and the internet. The hype will subside as the reality of implementation sets in, but the impact of generative AI will grow as people and enterprises discover more innovative applications for the technology in daily work and life.
- Your 7 Biggest Questions About ChatGPT, Answered Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer or, as you may know it, ChatGPT, is a chatbot and generative AI language tool launched by OpenAI in November 2022. At times, it feels as if we’ve heard about nothing else since. But amidst all the excitement — about ChatGPT in particular and conversational artificial intelligence in general — many questions remain about what generative AI really is and what it can do, both for people and in enterprise use cases. Here, our experts address some of the most common inquiries we’ve received from Gartner clients and vendors.
Ethics
GAI ethics is the concern that GAI, which can create new text and images, might have problems like unfairness, spreading false information, and invading privacy. People are also concerned that it could make it hard to tell what's real or fake and might affect jobs. To handle these worries, there's a need for rules and guidelines to make sure AI doesn't cause harm.
As an example, check out this flowchart below from UNESCO, which discusses when it's safe or ethical to use ChatGPT (or not).
Image from UNESCO: ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in higher education: Quick start guide - licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
News
News
Industry and Jobs Impact/Application
The impact of AI will be felt across industries, but some sectors may be affected more than others. GAI can augment/assist work, and even automate processes. Listen and watch a summary of this in the video below, or browse the latest news and reports further below.
Generative AI: The Big Risks (and Some of the Best Uses) (9 minutes)
As generative AI’s real world applications grow, the inevitable questions arise: Will this technology replace humans? Is it too risky to use? What’s the right level of governance? Watch the third episode in this series as Chris Howard, Gartner’s Global Chief of Research, takes a deep dive to explore these complex and nuanced questions.
- PwC’s Global Artificial Intelligence Study: Sizing the prize (full document) Business leaders are asking: What impact will AI have on my organisation, and is our business model threatened by AI disruption? And as these leaders look to capitalise on AI opportunities, they’re asking: Where should we target investment, and what kind of capabilities would enable us to perform better? These are the strategic questions we’ll be addressing in a series of reports designed to help enterprises create a clear and compelling business case for AI investment and development.
- Gartner: Which industries are most impacted by AI? Gartner suggests that Generative AI will affect the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, media, architecture, interior design, engineering, automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, electronics and energy industries by augmenting core processes with AI models. It will impact marketing, design, corporate communications, and training and software engineering by augmenting the supporting processes that span many organizations.
- Statista: Generative AI in marketing - statistics & facts Generative AI produces responses, written text, and ad copy with ease. Seven out of ten marketers in the U.S. stated that they are already deploying the help of these tools in their work. One prominent example is the usage of chatbots which aid communication between marketers and consumers, provide analytical responses to requests, and creatively partake in the customer journey. What is more, the various tools, such as ChatGPT and Copy.ai, fabricate not just responses and images based on prompts but also the so-called contextual creatives – ads that can change their elements according to the target group they are being exposed to.
- IBM: The artificial intelligence effect on industrial products The industrial products industry is awash with data. Instrumentation, sensors, machinery, automation systems, production and operation, maintenance records, and health and safety applications collectively produce a constant flow of data. Industrial products enterprises need technology that supports the vertical delivery of insightful data throughout the organization. In this report, financial outperformers share their AI successes.
- McKinsey: The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier The latest annual McKinsey Global Survey on the current state of AI confirms the explosive growth of generative AI (gen AI) tools. Less than a year after many of these tools debuted, one-third of our survey respondents say their organizations are using gen AI regularly in at least one business function. Amid recent advances, AI has risen from a topic relegated to tech employees to a focus of company leaders.
Effective use for Education
- GPT Zero GPT Zero is a free detection tool intended to detect output generated by popular GAI tools such as ChatGPT, GPT4 and Google Bard. It can also attempt to flag content which was generated by AI with human input. Do note that false positives can be generated.
- Zero GPT Zero GPT is a free tool intended to allow educators to detect content which has been created by Open AI (such as ChatGPT) and Google Bard. Do note that false positives can be generated by Zero GPT, which means that non-GAI created content can be wrongly flagged as so.
Citing GAI output
Wondering how to cite GAI generated content in your work? Check out the respective guides below.
Do note that there are currently no guidelines for citing AI generated content in IEEE style.
Further Reading
- Times Higher Education Times Higher Education is a publication discussing about changes needed in teaching and learning due to the availability of AI.