The short version

Rodney Brooks predicted on January 1, 2018: “Something new and big that everyone accepts as the new and big thing in AI will [come along] no earlier than 2023, and that the key paper for its success had already been written by before I made my first predictions.” Verdict: Called it. Large language models (LLMs) became widely accepted as the…

Prediction by

Rodney Brooks

On January 1, 2018

“Something new and big that everyone accepts as the new and big thing in AI will [come along] no earlier than 2023, and that the key paper for its success had already been written by before I made my first predictions.”

Follow-up

Large language models (LLMs) became widely accepted as the next big thing in 2023. The key paper "Attention Is All You Need" (on transformers) was published June 2017. Brooks confirmed this in a 2025 update: 'I was lucky on that date.'

From the High Caliber AI network — see the AI for PR module in the course.