Microsoft's 8bn bet on the artificial intelligence arms race

Its been described as the biggest technological breakthrough since the printing press, electricity and even fire.

So its perhaps no surprise Microsoft has pumped as much as 8billion into a new partnership with artificial intelligence leader Open AI, and its much-hyped Chat GPT model.

Its all part of an expensive and long-haul push into a brave new world where content and productivity are king.

In its simplest terms, artificial intelligence (AI) is computer programming that allows machines to behave like humans.

Examples include everything from the spam filter in your inbox, which is trained to recognise junk, to Amazon Alexas dotted around your home that respond to your voice.

First developed in the 1950s, AI means computers can be trained to mimic conversation, make predictions or recommendations, and ultimately process data in a much faster and efficient way than humans can.

So why, if AI has been around for so long, are we seeing such an acceleration in 2023?

The key reason, according to Dr Mhairi Aitken, research fellow at science hub The Alan Turing Institute, is because of the advances in generative AI, which not only makes processes faster but can be used to create completely original and new content, including audio, images, texts and videos.