The "AI" Pandemic

Artificial Intelligence. Its been a buzzword these past few weeks. In fact, according to Google Trends, the number of searches for the term “artificial intelligence” and “AI” has more than doubled these past few months. The rise of chatbots and AI powered tools have seen tremendous improvements over the years and is currently shaking the roots of human interactions and institutions worldwide.

Several organizations have incorporated artificial intelligence to automate routine work and enhance decision-making abilities over the years. AI-based chatbots have helped to facilitate client interaction and improved customer experiences for enterprises. Ever had an interaction on a website and gotten almost immediate respones that are helpful? Might have been an AI coming in to save the day!

In general, it involves assisting businesses in the retail, healthcare, financial, beauty, transportation and other sectors in realizing their full potential and operating more effectively.

Over the last couple of months, an “AI Pandemic”, as I like to call it, as swept over the entire world. The introduction of ChatGPT by OpenAI came with a lot of reaction: the good, the bad, and the indifferent. For most people, the tool was such a powerful addition to the tech community, creating avenues to get work done the smart way. Creatives are seeing how this AI tool can generate impressive “human-like” creative pieces in literally seconds.

This impressive AI tool can play games, buy food, and book flights, as well as engage in casual conversation on a wide range of topics, including niche subjects. ChatGPT can also generate artistic content such as songs, stories, jokes, and poems. Amazing, right? Well all the tech giants think so. Big players include Microsoft, which has now integrated Bing AI into Windows 11, and Google, which has Bard. Snapchat has also introduced its AI powered chatbot called “My AI”. Snap's implementation of generative AI treats it more like a persona. My AI's profile page is similar to that of any other Snapchat user, albeit with its own alien Bitmoji. The design suggests that My AI is meant to be another Snapchat friend for you to hang out with, rather than a search engine.

The key distinction is that Snap's version has a smaller range of questions it can respond to. Employees at Snap have instructed it not to respond with profanity, violence, sexual content, or thoughts on touchy subjects like politics in order to uphold the company's trust and safety standards. It has also been devoid of features that have already led to ChatGPT being banned in some schools.

Despite all these cool aspects, a good number of people believe that AI like ChatGPT could spell doom for some more human jobs. In fact, people are convinced that soon, artificial intelligence is going to take over the world as we know it! While their fears are somewhat valid, I believe there is still hope for the human race. AI might be learning more and gradually becoming “human-like” in it’s ways, but it can’t yet compare to the power of the human mind.

As we continue to develop the technology around us to be smarter and more helpful, it is important for us to ensure that some aspects of our lives like our beliefs and culture remain intact. These are things that cannot be replicated by AI, no matter how hard we try. Our history and traditions will forever be a part of us that can only be memoralized through photos and videos, but never stolen from us. We are human not because of what we can do now, but how we have done it in the past and how we continue to improve it as time goes on.