We are only a few years into the '20s, but by any measure, it's been an eventful decade so far. It’s frequently been said that we’ve already seen five years’ worth of technology-driven change packed into the last 18 months, mostly out of necessity, since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. And artificial intelligence (AI) development certainly hasn’t lagged behind. Back in 2019, in what seems like another lifetime, I had a stab at picking out what I thought were the most significant developments so far in the history of AI. With everything that has developed since then, I thought it would be a good idea to round up the biggest breakthroughs and most significant developments of the current decade. Unsurprisingly, many of the biggest and most headline-grabbing developments have been in the area of healthcare. However, ongoing research has also pushed boundaries of what is possible with natural language processing and vehicle autonomy.

1. THE BIGGEST ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
MILESTONES OF THE
DECADE S0 FAR

2. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
THE BIGGEST ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
MILESTONES OF THE DECADE SO FAR
We are only a few years into the '20s, but by any measure, it's been
an eventful decade so far. It’s frequently been said that we’ve
already seen five years’ worth of technology-driven change packed
into the last 18 months, mostly out of necessity, since the start of
the Covid-19 pandemic. And artificial intelligence (AI) development
certainly hasn’t lagged behind.

3. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Back in 2019, in what seems like another lifetime, I had a stab at picking out
what I thought were the most significant developments so far in the history
of AI. With everything that has developed since then, I thought it would be a
good idea to round up the biggest breakthroughs and most significant
developments of the current decade.
Unsurprisingly, many of the biggest and most headline-grabbing
developments have been in the area of healthcare. However, ongoing
research has also pushed boundaries of what is possible with natural
language processing and vehicle autonomy.

4. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
BEATING COVID
A major AI success story of the pandemic period has been the role it has played
in helping with vaccine development. Developing new vaccines generally takes
many years, but scientists had candidate vaccines at the human trial stage by
March 2020, just three months after the first reported cases of Covid-19
emerged in China. This was done using machine learning models to blitz
through the piles of data on immune system response and quickly identify which
compounds were likely to be most effective.
Leading Chinese AI developer Baidu made its LinearFold algorithms available to
the global scientific community. This was able to assist with the development of
the new breed of mRNA vaccines that work by enabling cells to create proteins
that provoke a response from the immune system.

5. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Of course, creating a vaccine was not the end of the story due to the ability of Covid-19 to
rapidly mutate into new variants. An algorithm created by the University of Southern
California has been able to hugely speed up the time it takes to assess the suitability of
vaccine candidates when presented with mutations and variants that could possibly make
existing vaccines less effective. The algorithm has been shown to be capable of eliminating
95% of potential vaccine compounds within seconds – a process that traditionally takes
several months.
Outside of vaccine development, AI has also been used to assist with contact tracing – one
company uses computer vision to identify those who have been in close proximity with
someone who has tested positive. On the other hand, it has to be noted that not every AI
covid story is a success – several studies have reported that attempts to create algorithms
that can diagnose the infection from X-rays and other medical images have not worked out.

6. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
GPT-3
In 2020, OpenAI unveiled the latest iteration of its Generative Pre-Trained Transformer
language modeling algorithms. This deep learning model is capable of creating the most
convincing and flexible natural language yet seen from an AI system. GPT-3 is even
capable of automatically generating computer code, meaning it can theoretically be used
to create computer software programs itself.
This is achieved by creating the most sophisticated and complex set of natural language
algorithms ever devised, consisting of 175 billion machine learning parameters. This gives it
the ability to create text (or code) in natural language, answer questions, automatically
summarise and annotate content, and translate between different languages.

7. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
GPT-3 is not yet widely available outside of academic use, and its creators
have said that due to its power, careful consideration has to be given to
how it can be used ethically and responsibly – for example, we have to be
sure that its output will be affected as little as possible by bias in the
datasets it is trained on – which includes the public crawl set scraped from
millions of web pages – and we all know that it isn’t uncommon to find bias
online!

8. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
ALPHAFOLD – PROTEIN FOLDING
In November 2020, Google subsidiary DeepMind announced that its AI had
cracked a problem that had been challenging the scientific community for more
than 50 years – namely, predicting the results of protein folding. This is the
biological process that governs the way proteins create new copies of
themselves – often thought of as nothing less than the fundamental building
block of life itself. DeepMind’s AlphaFold algorithm allows the result of protein
folding to be predicted more accurately than ever before, which has
tremendous implications for everything from curing diseases to creating new,
sustainable, and environmentally-friendly replacements for industrial materials
and chemicals.

9. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
To mark this achievement, DeepMind released a public dataset and
research tool including its predictions for all of the proteins cataloged so
far in the human body - around 350,000 – only a third of which had
previously been modeled. By the end of the year, this is planned to grow
to 130 million protein structures. DeepMind's co-founder Demis Hassabis
describes it as “The biggest contribution an AI system has made so far to
advancing scientific knowledge.”

10. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
TESLA LEVEL 2 – AUTONOMOUS DRIVING HITS THE ROAD, &
ROBOTAXIS ARRIVE IN CHINA
So they are a little behind schedule – Tesla CEO Elon Musk has famously claimed
that he would have fully autonomous (level 5) vehicles ready by the end of 2020
(if he did, he hasn’t shown it to anyone yet!)

11. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
But 2021 did mark the rollout of a significant milestone – commercially available
level 2 autonomy, available as an update to some owners of vehicles equipped with
the Autopilot upgrade. Level two autonomous vehicles are capable of carrying out
much of the basic driving behavior that would be expected of a human driver on a
regular road but require that a human is "hands-on" with the controls at all times
and ready to take over if the computer makes a mistake. Tesla is currently in the
process of moving its autonomous vehicle research away from the radar and lidar
sensor arrays which is currently used by most vehicle manufacturers, and focusing
on systems that can navigate entirely using cameras. This would mean they are, in
human terms, operating on vision alone – much as human drivers do. The update
has been rolled out slowly – rather than being made available to all Tesla drivers
right away – to allow the company to collect data and monitor its performance in a
controlled manner.

12. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Meanwhile, in China, Baidu launched the first autonomous “robotaxi”
service, called Apollo Go, into public use in 2020. Its vehicles are still co-
piloted by humans for reasons of safety and customer confidence, but the
service operating in Guangzhou is capable of making autonomous
journeys between 200 "stops." Baidu aims to expand the service – which
also operates in Beijing, Changsha, and Cangzhou - to 30,000 vehicles
operating across 30 Chinese cities by 2023.

13. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
THE FIRST AUTONOMOUS TRANS-ATLANTIC
CROSSING – MAYBE!
So, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the Mayflower – the ship that was due to
make the world’s first fully autonomous journey between the UK and USA in
2020. After a lengthy delay due to Covid, it eventually set off in June this year.
Unfortunately, though, it was forced to return to Plymouth, England, just a few
days into its projected three-week journey due to damaging its exhaust system.
The original Mayflower, which completed the journey carrying pilgrims to the
new world in 1620, also had to turn back – twice – before it successfully made
the crossing, so everyone is confident that the new Mayflower – a collaborative
project involving IBM and the non-profit research organization ProMare – will
make it eventually!

14. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
The Mayflower is a scientific research vessel – a particularly important use case for
autonomous ships due to their need to spend long periods at sea without needing
to return to port. It's also very environmentally friendly, as the lack of facilities
required for human safety and comfort means it is very light and requires little
energy to propel it.
The autonomous Mayflower gathers data from 30 sensors, including radar, GPS,
cameras, and depth-detectors. This is then passed to the "AI Captain" – an edge-
computing application that can make decisions without needing to relay the
information to a base station on land. Assuming it completes its journey as
expected, this will go down as a fantastic milestone in the history of autonomous
shipping and AI in general.

15. © 2021 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker,
futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and
companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data
more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as
artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is
a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for
Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers
and shares content that reaches millions of readers.

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www.bernardmarr.com