24.03 Liontrust Global Innovation Report - The Rise of AI 04.24 - Flipbook - Page 16
THE AI REVOLUTION
The rise of AI – a new cycle
We believe a new technology and innovation cycle has begun based on AI that will drive
strong earnings growth for the companies that can take advantage of it, just as previous
technology and innovation cycles have done.
AI’s ‘iPhone’ moment – 2022
Despite AI’s long-standing history of scientific development – and
no small degree of commercialisation already – it took the seminal
launch of Open AI’s ChatGPT consumer-interfacing generative AI
large language model in November 2022 to see AI breakthrough
into the mainstream of public consciousness. This launch effectively
served as AI’s “iPhone moment”, with significantly accelerating
adoption across companies and consumers.
Whether to embrace AI or not is arguably far less of a choice than
it once was, because it is now necessary to compete in a rapidly
growing range of industries and tasks. This is why we believe a
new technology and innovation cycle has just begun and why we
are only five minutes into the “football game”. Nevertheless, the
history of AI is a rich and illuminating one:
AI WINTER
ORIGINS
1950s
ORIGINS – 1950s
The origins of AI lie in the pioneering work of
Alan Turing, the famous British mathematician,
who in a 1950 paper proposed the idea of a
machine that could simulate human intelligence.
In this, he devised the famous ‘Turing Test’ as
a measure of a successful simulation, in which
humans cannot tell whether they are conversing
with another human or a machine. The ‘Dartmouth
Conference’ at Dartmouth College in the US in
1956 is often considered the official birthplace of
AI as an academic field. Here, the term ‘artificial
intelligence’ was first used, setting the stage for a
research programme that continues today.
In these early years, there was much optimism.
Academic researchers predicted that machines
capable of human-level intelligence would be
a reality within a generation. However, the
limitations of early computing power and
complexity of natural language understanding
frustrated early expectations.
16 - The rise of AI: Technology and Innovation Report
1980s 2000s
THE AI WINTER –
LATE 1980s TO 2000s
The ‘AI winter’ began in the late 1980s, a
period marked by much scepticism about AI’s
ultimate potential. Early AI systems struggled
to scale and adapt to real-world complexities,
leading to disillusionment and reduced funding.
