The release of GPT-4 in recent months have generated lots of enthusiasm for AI research, as well as fears of impending AI doom. But how sustainable is it really, and is it just simply another hype cycle that will soon fizzle out?
Will settle "Yes" if an AI Winter is confirmed to have occurred before January 1st, 2026, defined by a substantial decrease in both enthusiasm/interest for AI, followed by a subsequent decrease in funding for AI research. Else it will resolve as "No".
Media interest will die back at some point, as is typical during media cycles. Typically exacerbated by development processes (people not necessarily shouting about what they are working on until it is working/released). Also how this is measured obviously subject to interpretation.. Decrease in funding is probably difficult to measure given most funding is private, not published or counted (could well be wrong on this). Id also expect a longer overall period to measure this than just over a year. Current software will be enough to feed marketing machines for more than a year (e.g. cloud X)... Interested to see how this develops..