AI in 2023: The Timeline

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a fascinating landscape where technological strides intersect with our daily lives in ways that resonate with the essence of human connection. This year has unfolded a narrative of innovation that transcends mere algorithms, bringing AI closer to us with a touch of familiarity. Join us on this journey as we navigate through the remarkable highlights of AI in 2023.

Highlights from AI’s 2023 Timeline

Here are some of the biggest discoveries, advancements, and global changes made in the world of AI in 2023. Let’s explore how these advancements are shaping a future where technology seamlessly integrates into our human experience.

AI Highlights from January 2023

The year started off with AI showing some significant progress in the field of medicine and healthcare. Researchers at MIT collaborated with the Mass General Hospital to develop a deep-learning model that could assess a patient’s risk of lung cancer based on CT scans. In another revolutionary move, researchers developed an AI that can create artificial enzymes or proteins from scratch.

Amongst a lot of other innovations, artificial intelligence was also integrated into walking sticks to help the visually impaired find groceries. Meanwhile, on the business front, we saw OpenAI invest heavily in AI development, through a multiyear, multibillion-dollar deal with Microsoft.

AI Highlights from February 2023

Most of the hype in February 2023 was surrounding OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The AI-powered chatbot managed to clear the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), and its popularity soared to 100 million unique users.

In response to the ChatGPT phenomenon, Google introduced Bard A.I., a novel addition to the AI conversation landscape. Microsoft also took a significant step by launching a new Bing Search Engine integrated with ChatGPT.

Meta made waves by announcing LLaMA, a development that promises to advance AI capabilities within the Meta ecosystem. Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined forces with Hugging Face, a prominent AI platform, to empower AI developers.

In a groundbreaking achievement, researchers from Oxford demonstrated RealFusion, a state-of-the-art model capable of reconstructing a full 360° photographic model from a single image.

The world of AI also ventured into the realm of music generation in February 2023 with two distinct models. Google Research introduced MusicLM, a transformer-based text-to-audio model, capable of producing tracks across various genres, instruments, and concepts. On the other hand, Baidu researchers unveiled ERNIE-Music, the first text-to-music generation model in the waveform domain, using diffusion models. Both models mark significant strides in the fusion of AI and creative expression.

AI Highlights from March 2023

Generative AI saw a lot of interesting developments in March 2023. Adobe stepped into the GenAI realm with Firefly – a range of AI-backed image-generating and editing tools. Meanwhile, Canva introduced AI-powered virtual Design Assistants and Brand Managers for its users.

Tech giants’ AI projects were all in full swing towards the end of the first quarter. OpenAI launched APIs for ChatGPT and a text-to-speech model called Whisper. OpenAI also released a bunch of plugins for ChatGPT and officially launched its most advanced AI model, GPT-4.

HubSpot launched two new AI-powered tools for its users: ChatSpot.ai and Content Assistant. Zoom introduced its smart companion, Zoom IQ. On the educational front, Khan Academy launched the Khanmigo AI platform, where virtual bots work as counselors, curriculum designers, and teaching assistants. In the world of automobiles, Ford launched Latitude AI accelerating its autonomous driving project.

While Google integrated Al into the Google Workspace to help with writing on Docs and Gmail, Microsoft launched its AI-powered 365 Copilot. In competition, even GitHub launched its AI-powered coding assistant, Copilot X.

All of these diverse developments got us worried that AI was growing out of hand. The fierce pace of AI development awakened tech leaders and researchers to call for a pause. Even UNESCO joined in, asking for the implementation of ethical practices in Al development.

By March, people were more aware and open to trying out AI tools, which translated to over 100 million Microsoft Bing users. On the other hand, there also began a fear of AI taking over jobs, owing to a Goldman Sachs report predicting that AI could impact 300 million jobs.

On the business side, Apple acquired a video compression AI startup called WaveOne, while Replit and Google Cloud joined hands to advance GenAI possibilities.

AI Highlights from April 2023

April 2023 has been nothing short of revolutionary in the field of AI, with groundbreaking developments emerging from various corners of the tech world. From the integration of ChatGPT with Boston Dynamics’ robots to the democratization of My AI on Snapchat, the tech world witnessed a convergence of innovation that promises to reshape industries and societal norms.

Firstly, in the realm of education, Bill Gates projected a future where AI chatbots would play a pivotal role in teaching children to read within a mere 18 months. Secondly, AutoGPT emerged as the next big thing in artificial intelligence.

Russia’s Sberbank made a bold entry into the competitive AI arena by releasing GigaChat, a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Parallelly, Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Huawei also entered the world of generative AI. As Google Brain and Deepmined joined hands to accelerate AI progress, Elon Musk announced he was developing ‘TruthGPT,’ an AI designed to seek truth, as a rival to OpenAI and DeepMind.

While Apple forayed into healthcare with the development of ‘Quartz,’ an AI-based health coach, Microsoft Edge incorporated an AI Designer for social media marketing, and Meta released a new image recognition model, DINOv2. Meanwhile, Google started working on its ambitious Project ‘Magi,’ aimed at building an AI search engine.

Explorations in generative AI were off the roof that month. An AI-generated song titled “Heart on My Sleeve” featuring Drake and The Weeknd went viral, with over 20 million views in a day! Meanwhile, a photographer’s AI-generated artwork won the World Photography Award. Speaking of GenAI tools, Adobe’s Firefly, launched in March, expanded to include video editing by April.

Coming to social media, Snapchat made waves by onboarding a staggering 363 million users to its AI platform, owing to the launch of its ‘My AI’ avatar. Soon after, TikTok debuted AI-generated profile pictures for its users.

The AI Index, an independent project run by the AI Index Steering Committee, issued its yearly report in April, providing valuable insights into the trends, challenges, and future prospects of AI. Meanwhile, Dropbox laid off 500 employees as a consequence of artificial intelligence, proving the Goldman Sachs report right.

In a unique experiment amidst all this, Stanford researchers created an AI-powered village in the Sims-inspired Sandbox, using ChatGPT. What made it to the news, was that all of the 25 AI avatars created, developed their own identities, and communicated with each other, more like humans do.

Some other highlights of the month include the development of NVIDIA’s NeMo Guardrails Tool to enhance the safety and performance of AI chatbots, and DataBricks’ Dolly 2.0 for AI-powered data analytics. The integration of AI into everyday devices also took a giant leap in April, with the introduction of AI-equipped eyeglasses capable of deciphering silent speech.

AI Highlights from May 2023

Advancements in robotics took center stage in May 2023 as an AI system enabled robots to autonomously conduct scientific experiments. While Sanctuary AI’s Phoenix Robot became the world’s first commercially available general-purpose humanoid robot, Tesla’s Optimus Bot also showed significant progress. OpenAI-backed startup 1X also developed similar bots capable of being bartenders, nurses, and security guards.

Apart from humanoid robots, Elon Musk also built a brain implant startup, called Neuralink. The company aimed at creating and implanting AI-powered chips in people’s brains, got FDA approval for human trials within the same month!

OpenAI took a step toward accessibility by launching the ChatGPT mobile app, while Spotify expanded its AI-powered DJ features to the UK and Ireland. AI-powered code completion tool Kite introduced a new plugin for Visual Studio Code, enhancing coding efficiency for developers.

In the realm of creative AI, Midjourney 5.1 emerged as a catalyst for change, introducing significant updates to AI image creation. Stability AI released StableStudio, the open-source version of its image generation toolset Dreamstudio. Adobe introduced generative AI features to Photoshop, and DragGan introduced photo-realistic image manipulation through a simple drag-and-drop interface.

Google took a giant leap in May by launching the Vertex AI platform, unifying its diverse machine-learning tools. Microsoft also entered the AI arena with the launch of Azure AI, a comprehensive platform designed to facilitate AI development and deployment. Meanwhile, Meta made significant strides in AI hardware by releasing its first two AI chips.

Google made news in the AI language domain by unveiling PaLM 2, a versatile language model integrated into its products. Google also excelled in medical AI as Med-PaLM 2 surpassed human doctors in specific medical tasks. On a similar note, DeepMind’s AlphaFold achieved a significant milestone by predicting protein structures with unprecedented accuracy.

Stability AI made waves by introducing StableVicuna, the first large-scale open-source RLHF chatbot. Facebook also contributed to the open-source community by releasing PyTorch3D, a valuable resource for deep learning research in 3D vision.

May 2023 also witnessed a pivotal moment when ethical concerns arose as ChatGPT falsely claimed authorship of papers. A Texas professor took decisive action, failing more than half of his class, emphasizing the need for transparency and ethical considerations in AI applications.

Around the same time, Geoffrey Hinton, a luminary in the field of AI, left Google,  warning the world about the future dangers of AI. Soon after, AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio sounded a clarion call, urging governments to act quickly in regulating AI.

In the financial sector, American Express implemented AI to enhance its credit approval process. Meanwhile, on the scientific front, NASA harnessed the power of AI to provide Earth with early warnings of solar storms.

AI Highlights from June 2023

The unveiling of Apple’s Vision Pro has to be the biggest AI news of June 2023. The AI-powered augmented reality headset was developed to redefine immersive experiences.

OpenAI also made headlines, as it began plans to open its first non-U.S. office in London. The AI firm also announced plans to launch an App Store for AI, pioneering a new frontier in AI accessibility.

Chinese and American biotech companies harnessed the power of AI to discover anti-aging and other drugs. which were passed for human trials.

In the realm of AI governance, the EU’s AI Act entered the final phase of the legislative process. Meanwhile, Palantir, known for its big data solutions, showcased new AI-driven military capabilities, raising concerns about using AI in military decision-making.

The global consulting powerhouse, McKinsey, predicted that generative AI has the potential to add up to $4.4 trillion in value to the global economy. And in other news, Adobe finally integrated Firefly into Photoshop.

AI Highlights from July 2023

The AI landscape saw significant additions in July 2023, as POE.com incorporated Google Palm2, Claude2-100K, and GPT4-32K into its repertoire. This move highlighted the diverse range of advanced AI models contributing to the ever-expanding toolkit available to developers and researchers.

Meta-AI made waves by introducing Llama2, an open-source Large Language Model (LLM) equipped with an impressive 70 billion parameters. Simultaneously, Anthropic unveiled Claude2, a multimodal model boasting a whopping 130 billion parameters. Trained on an extensive dataset of 2.5 trillion tokens, Claude2 represented a leap forward in the realm of large-scale, multimodal language models.

Google Cloud reinforced its commitment to advancing AI capabilities by expanding generative AI in the Vertex AI platform. Meanwhile, Google DeepMind announced its ongoing work on a new version of Gemini, a Multimodal Large Language Model. Also, Stack Overflow announced its foray into AI with offerings tailored for developers. On the creative side, Clipdrop made a mark by introducing Stable Doodle, a Sketch-to-Image tool.

In healthcare, Daniel Ek, the creator of Spotify, co-founded Neko Health. The AI-based health tech startup had secured a remarkable $65 million in its first external round of funding.

AI Highlights from August 2023

August 2023 witnessed a convergence of groundbreaking advancements and ethical discussions in the dynamic field of AI. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT expanded its ‘Custom Instructions’ feature to free users, here are some other remarkable happenings.

In a leap forward for scientific research, AtomAI introduced deep learning to microscopy data analysis software. This innovation enhanced the precision and efficiency of analyzing microscopic data, unlocking new insights in fields such as biology and materials science.

Kneron’s auto-grade KL730 NPU chip emerged as a game-changer in the realm of edge AI. This chip’s revolutionary capabilities redefined how AI is integrated into devices at the edge, paving the way for more efficient and powerful applications.

Google transformed journalism with AI Genesis – a transformative initiative that leverages artificial intelligence in news reporting. Meanwhile, YouTube embarked on a new era for content creation by exploring AI-generated video summaries.

Major AI companies made significant safety commitments at the White House, emphasizing responsible AI development. This collective effort underscored the industry’s dedication to ensuring that AI technologies are developed and deployed with ethical considerations and user safety in mind.

In a landmark legal decision, a U.S. court denied copyright protection for AI-generated art. This ruling raised critical questions about the intellectual property rights of AI-generated creations and set a precedent for the legal status of AI-generated content. Following this, over 8,500 authors raised concerns about AI’s use of their writings. This further highlighted the ethical considerations surrounding AI and copyright.

AI Highlights from September 2023

OpenAI grew leaps and bounds in September 2023. It introduced real-time web browsing capabilities to ChatGPT and continued its exploration of creative AI with the introduction of DALL·E 3. OpenAI further revolutionized visual content creation with a Canva plugin for ChatGPT.

September saw various other developments in creative and generative AI as well. Midjourney introduced the ‘Vary Region’ feature redefining image editing by providing users with advanced AI tools and capabilities. Meanwhile, Stability AI unveiled a groundbreaking innovation in text-to-audio generation.

In a bid to empower content creators, YouTube launched YouTube Create, an AI-enabled editing app. This innovative tool streamlines the content creation process, providing creators with intuitive features driven by artificial intelligence. YouTube also introduced the AI-driven Humming Search feature, making it easier to explore and find music content on the platform.

In a novel experiment, Coca-Cola introduced a mystery flavor created by AI, highlighting the intersection of AI & the culinary world. This endeavor showcased the potential for artificial intelligence to contribute to innovative product development.

In a move towards transparency, Twitter, now rebranded as X, confirmed its utilization of public data to train AI models. Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the general availability of Amazon Bedrock – the platform that streamlines development processes.

While Meta redefined AI experiences across its family of apps and devices, Amazon revealed a significant advancement in voice technology. It stated that Alexa can engage in conversations ‘like a human’ with its new ‘Let’s Chat’ feature. And in other news, Microsoft entered the realm of bioinformatics with EvoDiff, a protein-generating AI.

AI Highlights from October 2023

October 2023 stands as a month where AI impacted various domains. ElevenLabs presented a groundbreaking AI editing technology that swiftly translates spoken content into different languages while preserving the sounds of the original speakers.

In a collaborative effort, Dell, Intel, and the University of Cambridge announced the Dawn Phase 1 supercomputer. Meanwhile, Google introduced a revolutionary AI tool, the Search Generative Experience (SGE), designed to generate summaries for specific search queries.

Amazon made waves in the realm of GenAI by rolling out AI-powered image generation capabilities, while leading design platform, Canva, showcased its commitment to innovation by unveiling a suite of AI tools.

AI Highlights from November 2023

The world of AI saw a lot of developments and launches in November 2023. Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, unveiled the AI chatbot “Grok”. Pika 1.0, entered the scene as a new model for video creation and Stability AI released Stable Video Diffusion. Amazon Web Services (AWS) also took a stride forward by releasing Amazon Q, the first chatbot specifically designed for companies.

OpenAI introduced the Assistants API, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate AI-driven conversational agents into their applications. Meanwhile, Google DeepMind contributed to the AI community by releasing a framework for classifying Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) models.

Samsung unveiled Gauss, a new-generation AI model designed to handle a variety of tasks. Gauss Language writes emails, summarizes documents, & translates texts, while Gauss Code assists in software development, and Gauss Image generates and modifies images.

Meta made strategic adjustments by disbanding its Responsible AI (RAI) division. This move reflected the evolving landscape of AI governance within tech giants and raised questions about future regulatory approaches.

Meanwhile, OpenAI experienced a rollercoaster of leadership changes, losing and regaining its CEO during the month. On the other hand, a drinks company called Dictador appointed the world’s first AI-powered CEO, Mika.

Amidst these shifts, OpenAI still managed to make waves by releasing the GPT-4 Turbo model. OpenAI also expanded ChatGPT’s capabilities by incorporating multi-modal functionality, letting it seamlessly work with both images and voice.

OpenAI further empowered users with greater control over their AI models by introducing a custom GPT-building feature for ChatGPT. This enables users to tailor their language models to specific needs and industries, fostering a more personalized AI experience.

The biggest highlight of November however, was the first-ever AI Safety Summit, hosted by the UK. The event brought together experts to discuss and address ethical and safety concerns associated with artificial intelligence.

AI Highlights from December 2023

As we head towards the end of the year, Google’s next-generation AI model, Gemini, takes center stage, outperforming GPT-4. This development marks a significant stride forward in natural language processing, demonstrating Google’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI capabilities.

In another update, AMD is heading towards NVIDIA’s crown in the AI hardware manufacturing industry. AMD has unveiled the Instinct MI300X GPU and MI300A APU, claiming a substantial lead over Nvidia’s competing GPUs.

While OpenAI is gearing up for the launch of GPT-6 and GPT-7 this month, Apple has just entered the open-source arena with the introduction of a machine learning framework, MLX. Meanwhile in India, Jio’s Haptik has launched an AI tool tailored for businesses.

In a groundbreaking collaboration, IBM, META, and 50 other prominent organizations formed the AI Alliance for Responsible Innovation. This alliance signifies a collective commitment to ensuring that AI development aligns with ethical standards and prioritizes responsible innovation.

On the global regulatory front, the European Union achieved a landmark agreement with the Artificial Intelligence Act. The Council and Parliament struck a deal, marking the first-ever worldwide rules for AI.

Conclusion

As we wrap up our exploration of AI’s evolution in 2023, it’s evident that these advancements go beyond mere codes and algorithms. They represent a significant leap toward enhancing our daily lives. From personalized chatbots to customizable language models and creative video assistants, AI is evolving to meet our needs in ways that mirror our own experiences. The journey so far promises a future where technology serves as a companion, guide, and creative collaborator, enriching our lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Here’s to a harmonious integration of technology and humanity in the exciting times ahead.

K.C. Sabreena Basheer

Sabreena Basheer is an architect-turned-writer who's passionate about documenting anything that interests her. She's currently exploring the world of AI and Data Science as a Content Manager at Analytics Vidhya.