The World Wide Web (Web) emerged as a new medium in the mid-1990s. It was invented by Tim Berners-Lee at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1989, but its exploding popularity was also enabled by the release of the Mosaic Web browser in 1993 and the Internet becoming commercially available in 1995. A communication revolution was launched. Roughly 30 years later, the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI in Nov. 2022 launched another revolution. High-quality generation of natural-language text, defined as the hallmark of intelligence by Alan Turing in 1950, is suddenly widely available. I wonder, however, if the generative AI (GenAI) revolution will end up devouring the Web revolution.

Jaron Lanier, the godfather of virtual reality and the sage of all things web, is nicknamed the Dismal Optimist. And there has never been a time we've needed his dismal optimism more. It's hard to read an article or listen to a podcast these days without doomsayers telling us we've pushed our luck with artificial intelligence, our hubris is coming back to haunt us and robots are taking over the world. There are stories of chatbots becoming best friends, declaring their love, trying to disrupt stable marriages, and threatening chaos on a global scale. Is AI really capable of outsmarting us and taking over the world? Well, your question makes no sense," Lanier says in his gentle sing-song voice. "You've just used the set of terms that to me are fictions.

The world is ablaze with talk of ChatGPT, one of the latest AI (artificial intelligence) applications revolutionizing everything from research and copywriting to blog and ad creation to college essays. Noticed or unnoticed, these applications have seeped into nearly every part of our world. And is there even a place for AI in our field? The answer to these questions is no… and yes. The fact is, I could have used ChatGPT to write this article (but I didn't).

Simply because artificial intelligence raises questions at all levels of society. Will robots take our work? Will AI destroy the human being and dominate the Earth? But also, how to overcome the current limits of Deep Learning and how to explain the decisions taken by the AI Systems, decisions from a so called "Black Box" that does not inspire much confidence … All these questions show the anxiety (logically legitimate: the human being and the living species in general are not appreciating so much the novelty and the uncertainties which result from it) concerning in general the advent of a new digital era, in which Artificial intelligence (and Big Data) is the engine. This article is intended to see things a little clearly in the questions posed above.

Not everyone sees artificial intelligence as the destroyer of worlds, or in milder cases – destroyer of jobs. Many people, particularly Millennials, are confident AI will instead create new jobs in the future. That's is according to a new report by analyst firm CCS Insight, which found that many workers believe AI will automate mundane work tasks and boost productivity and collaboration applications. The report, which polled more than 650 employees, found that more than half believed this profound change will happen within three years. A larger portion, however (70 per cent), believe this will happen within the next decade.