2023: The year of generative AI

OpenAI announced ChatGPT, a generative AI based on a large language model, in late 2022 and made its name early this year.

Soon afterwards several other tech giants released their own chatbots, including Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s Bing Chat and Baidu’s Ernie Bot.

Generative AI has helped dispel the image of boring, inflexible and traditional AI that has been around for decades.

From a technology that was thought to be out of reach, AI has now become much more accessible and intuitive to use, opening the door for their application in daily life.

In a report on trending searches in Vietnam this year, Google said AI has become a hot topic in the country. Vietnamese are most interested in AI’s benefits and a course of study and ways it can be applied to specific fields.

In January, when OpenAI still had not allowed ChatGPT registration in Vietnam, people were trying to create or purchase accounts to access the chatbot.

Using its vast capabilities, users have been enlisting its help to write essays and poetry, even reports, among other uses.

ChatGPT used on a smartphone. Photo by VnExpress

In schools, ChatGPT is used by both teachers and students to assist with subjects where large amounts of information need to be processed.

In the office, a few keywords are enough for ChatGPT to generate speeches to be delivered to dozens of employees.

Writers use ChatGPT to find topics to write about.

Despite its numerous imperfections, the AI is considered a valuable tool to save time and effort in doing daily tasks.

ChatGPT is also considered to be more competent at translation than other software since, instead of merely translating words and phrases, it can “understand” the context of entire paragraphs and so deliver a translation that is easier to understand.

Chatbots were not the only AI to be all the rage in Vietnam this year: Midjourney, another generative AI capable of creating pictures and images out of prompts, was also trending.

People have been using AI to create drawings and photos since last year, but mostly in tech communities.

However, with the advent of ChatGPT, other tools which are used to generate photos have also come into the limelight and saw much higher user numbers in 2023.

With simple word prompts, anyone can create drawings done in various styles and categories, including comic strips.

A photo of people in anime style generated by Loopsie. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Anh

The rise of AI in Vietnam has also created a new job: prompt engineers. These engineers do not need to know how to code or program; they only need good language and communication skills to effectively tell AI what to do.

With knowledge in the field of AI, these engineers can also “train” bots to better their final results.

AI can also be used to create personal avatars. While such avatars have been around for a long time, the real wave only began with the rise of generative AI, especially in the latter half of 2023.

In July Remini, an app that transforms selfies into avatars, eclipsed Meta’s Threads to become the No.1 application on App Store. In Vietnam, it was among the top six photo editing apps to be installed.

All users need to do is upload seven photos, and Remini helps them create customizable avatars with different shapes, clothing, age, and even skin color.

In August a wave of anime-style photos flooded social media platforms in Vietnam. They were generated by Loopsie, another AI application that was capable of not only changing people’s appearances, but also their surroundings.

Two months later Zalo integrated its new AI Avatar function to help users design their own avatars in six different styles.

However, experts are sounding a warning that AI can be used for nefarious purposes, including creating deepfakes that can be used to scam people.

They suggest that people should think twice before uploading their personal pictures on AI platforms.

“Once data is exploited, not only the users themselves but also their families, friends and everyone around will lose,” an expert from the anti-scamming Chongluadao project said.