International Journal of Information Technology

Vol. 29, No. 1, 2023

Editorial for

International Journal for Information Technology (IJIT)
Special Issue on Generative AI

Generative AI has jumped into the public consciousness and sparked both debates and imaginations for its ability to change the landscape not only at the level of research projects but also in the end user space. Almost overnight, it became a topic of conversation at conferences, seminars, boardrooms and bars, for its perceived ability to imbue human traits into written (and by association, verbal) interactions as well as media and arts. Creativity has long been considered the biggest limitation of artificial systems, but Generative AI is almost a ‘creativity Turing Machine’, able to turn its hand to any art mode or style that a user can ask for, and changing what is possible for artificial systems in the future and even how we think about them.

With such a potentially huge range of application domains that Generative AI is able to contribute to, categorising and organising discussion around it is a non-trivial task. This issue of IJIT attempts to provide some food for further discussion and thought, presenting a variety of viewpoints and perspectives that evaluate the methods and potential impacts of this new focus. Application domains such as teaching, health and medical care, complex tasks and data generation just scratch the surface of the ways that this new mode of interaction and creativity can and will change the landscape of future systems. It does feel that we are at the dawn of a new era of potential, and this issue both celebrates this and invites discussion around which avenues are most promising, and what the long term potential may be.

Yours Sincerely

Cyril Leung, Special Issue Editor