Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Businesses: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Kieran McCorry:
I will respond first because I mentioned this earlier. Small language models will have a dramatic role in terms of making access to this technology available to others. The whole point of using small language models versus large language models is that they can be instantiated on smaller devices. Instead of having to use the cloud to access ChatGPT or Azure OpenAI, for example, users can access the same kind of technology without doing so. Perhaps it is not exactly at the same scale and sophistication but it is more focused on niche or discrete tasks on a mobile device. At the very least, over the next number of years, months or maybe even weeks at this rate of development, we expect it will be a good deal easier and simpler for individuals and businesses of all sizes to access bespoke systems and models that can run on a laptop or other mobile device. There are at least two benefits from this, which fit with the sustainability perspective. These models are much more efficient in terms of computing energy requirements, both to train and to operate. There will be many benefits from that.