A Serious Look at AI

The last several years, Artificial Intelligence has been a big topic in the tech world and beyond. And with all that it could impact, and is already impacting in our world, that certainly should be the case.

While some are deadest against the concept and tend to think in terms of something like an eventual machine takeover something like the Hollywood stories behind the Terminator and Matrix series of films, others have a very positive outlooks of how it can be a great tool for humanity. I myself think both side of the argument have some valid points.

If AI is used solely as a tool rather than as its own solution to problems or challenges, it can be very useful. For example, as something of a visual artist, I can say that AI can be beneficial in helping human creators to bring their vision to life. On the other hand, art is about the human experience and thus should not be left to AI alone. As of this time, I am not sure but don’t think it is possible for AI to generate art without human direction but if that would ever be possible it should be avoided.

On perhaps a more life-altering level, this technology can help in the development of medical breakthroughs. If it can help us better identify and treat diseases and potentially even cure them, who wouldn’t be thrilled with that? But at the same time, humans should not be trying to play God with genetics, especially for superficial reasons, and this could be one of the dangers of this tech.

As a writer by education and profession, I am very much offended by the idea of intellectual property theft and even more so plagiarism. I see plagiarism as the most egregious of academic offenses. And recently, a program called ChatGTP and similar tools like the one touted by a certain well-known LSU gymnast and influencer, have become a major problem. These things can literary write your papers for you! This is completely unacceptable. Not only should this be banned for the protection of academic integrity but also to ensure that students are actually learning something.

As for the truly scary, there is a lot that we should be aware of. Of course, some people go to extremes like the idea of Skynet becoming self-aware in the aforementioned Terminator series. But, just because that might be a bit over the top, it doesn’t mean we don’t have to be careful of letting this stuff run wild.

On one hand, it can encourage laziness and decrease our capacity for memorization. If we rely on our AI personal assistants every time we need a phone number, that’s not a good thing. We still have fingers and keyboards; we can do the research for ourselves.

One of the craziest things involves deep fake photos and videos. AI is very good at creating these things. While these can be entertaining, they could also be used to spread harmful misinformation and even potentially start conflicts between nations. That could literally cost people their lives.

Ultimately, AI should work something like this. Think of the human as the boss at a company and AI as the employee. Or another way is to think of it is the human as the teacher and AI as the student. Either the boss must provide a task for the employee to do or the teacher give the student an assignment. Without the direction from the boss or teacher, the employee or student would not simply be able to do things on their own. If the teacher says they are assigning an essay but do not tell the student the topic, the student should not be able to decide the topic for themselves.

If that is even possible or we ever get to such a point, we would have gone too far for sure. Terminator and the Matrix wouldn’t be that crazy after all.