text: Artificial intelligence was founded as an academic discipline in 1956,[6] and the field went through 
  multiple cycles of optimism throughout its history,[7][8] followed by periods of disappointment and loss of 
  funding, known as AI winters.[9][10] Funding and interest vastly increased after 2012 when deep learning 
  outperformed previous AI techniques.[11] This growth accelerated further after 2017 with the transformer 
  architecture,[12] and by the early 2020s many billions of dollars were being invested in AI and the field 
  experienced rapid ongoing progress in what has become known as the AI boom. The emergence of 
  advanced generative AI in the midst of the AI boom and its ability to create and modify content exposed 
  several unintended consequences and harms in the present and raised concerns about the risks of AI and 
  its long-term effects in the future, prompting discussions about regulatory policies to ensure the safety 
  and benefits of the technology. 