Short answers, pulled from the story.
Artificial intelligence was officially launched as a field in the summer of 1956 when researchers gathered at Dartmouth College. The group included figures like John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky who aimed to make machines think.
Deep learning began to dominate artificial intelligence in 2012 when graphics processing units accelerated neural networks. This hardware shift allowed systems to outperform all previous techniques using vast training data like the ImageNet dataset.
The transformer architecture was introduced in 2017 to mark the beginning of the generative AI boom. These models known as generative pre-trained transformers could generate coherent text and images by predicting the next token in a sequence.
Microsoft announced an agreement to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in 2024. The company plans to use 100% of the plant's electric power for 20 years to support its data centers.
Greenhouse gas emissions from the energy consumption of artificial intelligence are estimated to reach 180 million tons in 2025. This figure could rise to 300 to 500 million tonnes by 2035 depending on mitigation measures.
Physicist Stephen Hawking warned that artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Philosopher Nick Bostrom also argued that a sufficiently powerful AI might choose to destroy humanity to achieve its goals.