Artificial intelligence, or AI, is the latest exciting technology to burst through the boundaries of the tech sphere into mainstream culture. It's done it before in decades past, but this time it feels significant. This time it feels different. And there's a reason for that: The latest generations of artificial intelligence have been shown to be far more capable than even its creators expected.
The newest AI technologies are having a real impact, potentially revolutionising whole industries, changing workflows and improving worker efficiency by incredible leaps. In short, AI could be the next great step in human productivity, helping us all become faster, more capable, and more informed workers.
It's not always clear how AI will achieve those goals, though. You might have had a conversation with ChatGPT and marvelled at its ability to write back like a human, but how can that incredible technology change your life, or improve your business?
Let's take a look at the latest generations of AI, where they came from, what they can do, and how Chillblast can help you leverage these technologies to make your business that much better.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is an incredibly broad category of technology that can be applied to just about any machine or software that exhibits some measure of intelligence that isn't human or animal based.
AI was initially founded as an academic discipline in the 1950s and has gone through several booms and busts of interest over the decades as new advances were made in creating artificial intelligence. Notable advances in recent decades include the advent of intelligent search engines, personalised advertisements, and recommendation engines on streaming services like YouTube and Netflix. AI is also used today in autonomous vehicles, drones, facial recognition software, dynamic video and game upscaling, and virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, among many others.
The most recent interest in AI has been spurned by the growth and advance of a unique branch of artificial intelligence built off of natural language processors. This is a field of computing and linguistics that has been working for decades on improving the natural language understanding of software. It's the field that's made it possible to ask questions of Google, rather than merely type in associated search terms, and made smart assistants able to understand our questions and requests.
But this natural language processing has, in recent years, been applied to artificial intelligence, and with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022, the potential of these powerful linguistic systems was made available for all to see.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained transformer), is a large language model AI, often called a chatbot, that is built on top of OpenAI's GPT language models. It uses Google's transformer machine learning model and has been tuned to act as a conversational partner, exchanging information and pleasantries as part of a two-way conversation.
It's an impressively realistic take on what chatting to another human can be like, and has shown itself very capable of delivering accurate responses on everything from complicated mathematical queries, to personal emotional advice. In a trend that's concerning educators and writers alike, it's also shown itself to be very capable of writing coherent copy, and even generating creative writing based on prompts from a user.
There are severe limitations to ChatGPT, though. In its current form – and especially with the older, GPT-3 language model – it has run into issues with "hallucinating" answers to questions, stating completely erroneous information with as much confidence as it does correct data. This has led to some publications which adopted ChatGPT as part of their writing teams to eventually drop it, following massive errors in public-facing content.
However, early missteps aside, AI is already making major impacts in other industries outside of publishing. Many are starting to use ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence to benefit them and their businesses in exciting ways.
What is AI content?
One of the most exciting ways that AI is helping modern businesses is by generating AI content. That can come in the form of art, with some of the latest art-generating AI like Stable Diffusion and Dall E having proven themselves capable of making some amazing human-like art in a range of styles.
As with ChatGPT, AI has also been getting very good at generating text, be it copywriting for a website, emails with a personal touch, or social media posts with the right hashtags. Some people have even gone to the extent of writing entire novels utilizing AI, some with human intervention, and others with a very hands-off approach.
This has seen tools for generating AI content explode onto the scene in recent months, with there now being a plethora of powerful AI platforms that can create all kinds of AI content for you.
But these tools are almost always entirely generic. ChatGPT is a powerful conversational chatbot, but it only knows the data it was trained on up until Autumn 2021. Google Bard and Bing Chat might have search engine access, but they don't have access to proprietary information. They don't know your business, your customers, your history.
That's why some companies are starting to use AI trained explicitly on their data, making them far more useful tools for improving your business, by making it more efficient and more profitable, as well as improving the service to your customers.
How are companies using AI today?
AI is increasingly being used by companies for all sorts of tasks, and it's making a big impact. More than half of U.S. companies today use AI as part of their cybersecurity and fraud management services. Many are now using it as part of their customer support system to answer common queries, too, and some large corporations like Amazon have even been using it as part of their hiring and firing program to manage worker efficiency.
While there are certainly conversations to be had about over-reliance on AI, and business managers maintaining control over any AI solutions they implement, the cat is out of the bag as far as AI is concerned. It's here, it's here to stay, and if handled correctly it stands to benefit everyone from the business owners, to the customers themselves.
Artificial intelligence can help every business and every worker by simplifying, speeding up, and improving the efficiency of all the day-to-day administrative tasks that they have to handle. From sending emails to making social media posts, to collaborating with colleagues and setting up meetings and calls – office skills are something many workers need to have. But it’s something that AI can do just as well, if not better.
Chatbots like ChatGPT have proven themselves excellent email writers, and with plugins and other third-party tools, you can integrate it with your calendar, and other services, to better automate much of your work and home life.
Improvements in customer experience
It’s not just workers that can benefit from AI, though – it’s also improving the customer experience. Online computer component retailer Newegg, made waves in 2023 for the multiple ways it implemented ChatGPT to make its site and services more responsive, easier to use, and more helpful to its customers. It first began using it to optimize the text on its website, evaluating and summarising the content to make it more legible and useful for visitors trying to figure out what their next upgrade should be.
It also implemented ChatGPT in its customer support system, answering queries and raising concerns with Newegg staff when a more human-driven response is required. Although it has used chatbots in the past for this role, ChatGPT can handle a much broader array of topics and can have longer and more in-depth conversations with customers to help them with their queries or concerns.
The most innovative way that Newegg has implemented ChatGPT though, is with its PC Builder. The tool was launched in 2020 as a way to help customers find compatible components, within the constraints of their needs and budget. However, the AI-enhanced PC Build tool lets customers input their needs and desires in much more human-language ways, giving it the ability to make suggestions based on the desires of the customers much more succinctly. This could involve the type of games they want to play, or their particular storage needs.
Improvements in product development
AI is also seeing a lot of use in product development. Pharmaceutical companies are using it to develop new drugs and run simulations of chemical compounds to see how they might work as potential medicines. Atomwise is a company that’s foremost business model is in the use of AI to discover new drugs. Technology companies like Siemens are also using AI to make smart estimations about when their products will fail, or require maintenance. This is helping them structure their warranties to be as cost-effective as possible, as well as reducing downtime on potential replacements for costly components by adjusting service scheduling in professional and enterprise environments.
There are new generative design tools being used in prototyping and 3D modelling. They use the power of AI and machine learning to quickly iterate on designs to find the best solution to a problem by making minor adjustments to important factors in a design. The AI can then learn from each iteration and continue to refine designs in the future or provide additional insight into new redesigns by human hands.
A really obvious way AI has been filtering into the public sphere is in content recommendations. Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and most other streaming service providers use artificial intelligence to analyze user behaviour, watch times, content choices, and more, to better personalize their services. This can be seen in the way certain films and TV shows are marketed to different individuals in different ways, with different thumbnails used to specifically pull in certain types of viewers.
AI that goes deeper
The one thing all of these businesses have in common, though, is that the AI is trained on their data. It goes beyond what the generalised AI tools available to the public are designed to do, and drills down into the specifics to help that particular business offer a better service, provide better products, and improve processes and efficiencies to increase profitability.
To do that, they need to effectively manage and curate all that information in a way that is both readable by the AI, and manageable by those looking to train it. That’s not an easy task for any company, especially those that haven’t dabbled in machine learning or AI-driven optimization before.
If you're interested in developing your own AI for your business, or want to explore AI development, that's where Chillblast can come in.
How can Chillblast help your business leverage the power of AI?
AI is all around us, and that’s only going to become more common in the years and decades to come. While recent fears of worker mass replacement at the hand of new white-collar AI’s like ChatGPT have proven mostly unfounded, there is a firm chance in the next few years that workers with AI may replace workers without AI, and the same may be true for businesses, too.
You needn’t fear this AI revolution, though. You can be part of it, and Chillblast is poised and ready to help you make that transition, every step of the way. We’re not only expert PC builders for the home, but have been producing high-end business-class workstations and servers for over a decade. If you want to leverage the power of artificial intelligence, Chillblast has everything you need to get started.
Starting from scratch
The key starting point for AI development or integration in your business is a proof of concept. Chillblast offers a robust consultation process so we can look at your business and figure out the best way to leverage the data you already have to make your business run better and offer a better product to your customers. We’ll consult directly with you and your staff to discover the best way to use your data to make real improvements to your day-to-day work life.
We follow this up with a proof of concept design to showcase to you just how we can build an AI system that will make the most of your data. This can involve virtualizing a system in the cloud, or building a custom server design that can then be expanded out to offer the full range of AI functionality and flexibility.
As long-time PC builders, we know where the true power in our hardware lies, which is why every single AI system Chillblast produces, even proof of concept designs, is built using the very latest components. That includes top graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD, powerful processors from AMD and Intel, and the fastest NVMe storage solutions to make sure all of your data is safe, secure, and just as importantly, readily accessible by any AI system we help you develop.
We can handle the scale
Whether you’re starting from nothing, or looking to build an expansive AI system right from the get-go, we have the hardware, services, and expertise to handle it. We know from experience that artificial intelligence initiatives can scale rapidly as organizations find huge efficiency savings by implementing even simple AI tools in their business structure.
To that end, Chillblast is ready for the most modest of designs, right the way up to huge arrays of CPUs and GPUs powering the most cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
If you feel intimidated by the idea of hosting huge ranges of hardware at your business, too, you needn’t fear. Chillblast works directly with major managed hosting providers, so we can help you get set up with a remote system to handle your data and power your AI. This is one of the fastest ways to get up and running, too, since many of these servers are already deployed and ready to take advantage of.
You also get guaranteed uptime, improved security, and the guarantee of more sustainable energy use at certain partners. That last point can be particularly important if you’re looking to retain your green credentials while scaling up your digital infrastructure to handle more data for more customers and clients.
Getting everything connected
Once an AI has been deployed, it needs consistent training with new data to make sure it stays up to date on all your products, services, client lists, and anything else it needs to do the job you require. To do that, you need to make sure you have a robust network, with high-speed data transfer between all the necessary systems, and the AI infrastructure itself.
With that goal in mind, Chillblast offers high-performance networking hardware and network setup services, making sure that whether your server is in a datacenter or located on-site, you can access it as fast as you (and your AI services) need.
We offer solutions for extremely fast and reliable Ethernet connections, up to 10 Gigabit Ethernet across distances as long as several miles in extreme cases thanks to fibre optic connectivity. For more extreme distances, or to remove the wire tether, Chillblast can also work with 4G and 5G wireless transition giving you the best performance possible, wherever your servers are located.
We’ll handle the training
Bringing artificial intelligence into your business isn’t just about building the hardware, or helping you to manage the software; it can mean training staff to utilize the new tools effectively. And Chillblast is ready to help.
In collaboration with some of our partners, we’re able to offer virtualized workshops for your organization, helping your staff get to grips with everything they need to do to make the most of your new AI systems.
We work directly with AI developers at some of the most cutting-edge companies, and can bring that expertise right to the heart of your organization, so your teams are ready to get to work with the best tools for the job.
We’re always available
Chillblast isn’t the kind of company to set and forget our AI deployments.
If you feel ready to handle things after the setup, we can be as hands-free as you need, but if you want ongoing support, regular updates to your hardware, or professional servicing, Chillblast is ready and willing. Our expert system builders and installers will make sure that your servers and systems are set up perfectly from day one, and can provide additional support as and when you need it.
Chillblast also stays on top of the absolute latest hardware developments, so if a new processor, memory, storage, or graphics solution is launched that we feel would accelerate your AI systems, we’ll be on hand to upgrade you to it as soon as possible.
Other ongoing Chillblast services are available, too. Just speak to an AI development representative and they’ll be able to fill you in on all the different options available for ongoing Chillblast support with your AI systems.
Conclusion
Whether you’re looking to use ChatGPT to write a few emails for you, or want to train a new AI to become a core part of your business, Chillblast is here to help. We’ve worked with clients big and small, and on AI’s as simple as impressive as you can imagine, and in every case we’ve seen some measured improvement in a client’s organization following implementation.
There are a myriad of ways that AI is already helping Chillblast evolve as a business, and you can join the cutting-edge with one of our bespoke AI solutions, from proof of concept, right through deployment, and aftercare. Chillblast provides the full package of AI solutions, with the hardware expertise to make your AI deployment work flawlessly fast from day one.
If you’re still not sure if artificial intelligence can benefit your business, give Chillblast a call, and one of our implementation experts will walk you through what we have to offer and how it might be just what you need to take your business to the next level.
