The term AI is very vague because intelligence is an inherently subjective concept. If we’re defining AI as something that has consciousness then it doesn’t exist, but if we’re defining it as a task that a computer can do on it’s own, then virtually everything that is automated is run by AI.
Even with generative AI models, they’ve been around for a while too. For example, lot of the news articles you read, especially about the weather or news aren’t written by actual people, they’re AI generated. Another example would be scientific simulations, they use AI to generate a bunch of possible scenarios based on given parameters. Yet another example would be the gaming industry, what do you think generates Minecraft worlds? The point here is that AI has been around for awhile and is already being used everywhere. What we’re seeing with chatGPT and these other new models is that these models are now being released for public access. It’s like democratization of AI, and a lot of good and bad things are bound to come of it. We’re at the infancy stage of this now, but just like with the world wide web before it, these technologies are going to fundamentally change how we do many things from now on.
We can’t fight technology, that’s a losing battle. These AIs are here and they’re here to stay. So strap on and enjoy the ride.