The State of AI

This post is the first in a three-part series we're publishing this year on artificial intelligence, written by DigitalOcean's Head of R&D, Alejandro (Alex) Jaimes. In recent months, the amount of media coverage on AI has increased so significantly that a day doesn't go by without news about it. Whether it's an acquisition, a funding round, a new application, a technical innovation, or an opinion piece on ethical and philosophical issues ("AI will replace humans, take over the world, eat software, eat the world"), the content just keeps coming. The field is progressing at amazing speeds and there's a lot of experimentation. But with so much noise, it's hard to distinguish hype from reality, and while everyone seems to be rushing into AI in one way or another, it's fair to say there is a good amount of confusion on what AI really is, what sort of value it can bring and where things will go next.