A 75‐Year Journey and the Diffusion Divide

The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) traces its roots back to 1950, when Alan Turing published his famous paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, in which he asked the now-legendary question, “Can machines think?” and proposed the Turing test as a way to evaluate machine intelligence. Large language models work by estimating the probability distribution of the next word given a particular context. The culmination came in November 2022 with the release of ChatGPT. ChatGPT allows any user to access the vast knowledge base of the open web conversationally. Countries that have invested in digital infrastructure and whose citizens have the skills to use AI tools in a language they speak are adopting AI at notably higher rates. Access to reliable electricity is strongly correlated with gross domestic product per capita and is foundational for AI adoption.