AI Goes Mainstream in 2023 Amid Controversies and Legal Safeguards

ChatGPT leads AI's mainstream adoption, sparking concerns over its unchecked progress and prompting the creation of the world's first major AI legal safeguards.

Artificial intelligence (AI) went mainstream in 2023, with ChatGPT, a chatbot, leading the way and giving the world a glimpse of recent advances in computer science.
The first AI panic of 2023 occurred when schools started blocking ChatGPT after teenagers began using it to compose essays and answer take-home tests.
AI's unchecked progress led to concerns about it outsmarting humans and possibly threatening their existence, while others called these concerns overblown and highlighted more immediate risks.
By the end of the year, AI crises had shifted to ChatGPT's maker, OpenAI, which was nearly destroyed by corporate turmoil, and to a government meeting room in Belgium, where a deal for the world's first major AI legal safeguards was agreed upon.
The dangers of AI could escalate in 2024, as major national elections could be flooded with AI-generated deepfakes.