Tech the Halls

Recent breakthroughs in AI have the potential to drastically affect the way we approach our business, work, and daily lives. What does this entail for higher education in Malaysia?

- Ji Fang Qing

Imagine typing “Mercedes-Benz car driving on Mars, graphic style of Saul Bass” for it to come into fruition within a matter of seconds—the image blinking from your laptop screen, right before your eyes. 

Until recently, AI has been largely limited to predictive models used to observe and classify patterns in content. Now, rapid progress in these “large language models”—with millions and trillions of parameters—have unlocked a new era of generative AI which can compose melodic sounds, create photorealistic images and craft engaging prose. 

WHAT IS GENERATIVE AI? 

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is the process of using computers and machines to mimic human perception and decision-making to complete a task. Put more specifically, it is a branch of machine learning (models that can learn from data patterns without human direction) that uses algorithms to generate new outputs based on certain input parameters. 

Unlike traditional AI designed to recognise patterns and make predictions, GenAI creates new content in the form of text, images, audio, video, code and other content. Hence “generative” because the AI creates something new. 

Introduced in 1966, Eliza—a chatbot that simulates talking to a therapist—is one of the earliest examples of GenAI, developed by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT. Since then, you’ve probably interacted with voice assistants like Siri and Alexa and customer service chatbots online.