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Revolutionary improvements to automation and production may one day create machines able to produce almost anything, quickly and cheaply, and far faster and more varied than modern 3D Printers. Such devices are sometimes known as Santa Claus Machines, Cornucopia Devices, or Clanking Del-Replicators, and today we will examine how likely such technology is, how far off in the future they might be, and what impact they would have on society.

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Credits:
The Santa Claus Machine.
Episode 165, Season 4 E51

Writers.

In May 2020, AI research laboratory OpenAI unveiled the largest neural network ever created—GPT-3—in a paper titled, ‘Language Models are Few Shot Learners’. The researchers released a beta API for users to toy with the system, giving birth to the new hype of generative AI.

People were generating eccentric results. The new language model could transform the description of a web page into the corresponding code. It emulates the human narrative, by either writing customised poetry or turning into a philosopher—predicting the true meaning of life. There’s nothing that the model can’t do. But there’s also a lot it can’t undo.

As GPT-3 isn’t that big of a deal for some, the name remains a bit ambiguous. The model could be a fraction of the futuristic bigger models that are yet to come.