An essay on the future of AI

For someone who has completed a master’s degree in Computer Science, with the specialisation in Artificial Intelligence, my life after graduation has had very little to do with AI. Of course, I use AI almost daily for my coding projects and I converse with chatbots whenever I need to restructure data or whenever regular search engines fail me, but in that regard I am just a regular consumer of the available tools.

Although I would not consider myself an AI expert (in part due to my thoughts on my master’s education), people around me come to me for AI insights or send me AI-related news. Thus, when my mom saw an advert for the 2024 edition of the Robbert Dijkgraaf Essay Prize, she immediately thought of me. This Essay Prize, organized by science magazine New Scientist and newspaper AD, is an annual competition for students, alumni, and employees of Dutch and Belgian universities, in which they are asked to write a short essay on a scientific topic.

The theme (in Dutch) of the 2024 edition was:

“Onbeperkte mogelijkheden? Dankzij AI is iedereen wetenschapper. Schrijver. Kunstenaar. Alles?”

Which translates to: “Unlimited possibilities? Thanks to AI, everyone is a scientist. Writer. Artist. Everything?” I decided to join in on the competition, and you can read my essay by clicking the button below. Note that it is written in Dutch.

While three finalists would be invited to attend the Gala van de Wetenschap (Gala of Science), where a winner would be announced, I did not make it to the final round. I can genuinely recommend reading the winning essay, written by student Michiel Smit. There are some common themes between our essays, but his is a more engaging read — I have some ground to cover still when it comes to writing informative essays that are also entertaining.

About the image:
When publicly available generative AI was still a novelty, I used a free, not very sophisticated online AI-tool to turn this photo into a painting. The original photo was taken during a trip to the Swedish island of Hönö in 2022.