Simon Jones: Artificial sweetener

Earlier this week, I attended the UK launch of the Essilor Varilux XR series progressive and it got me thinking about how far artificial intelligence (AI), which is at the heart of the lens’ design, had come in a relatively short space of time within the world of optics. 

Exposure to AI in everyday life is rapidly increasing, and in a similar way to how we saw accelerated acceptance and understanding of video-conferencing during the pandemic, the emergence of AI chatbot tools like ChatGPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) have brought the technology to a new audience. But are they likely to understand the nuances?