It seems like AI is everywhere these days, as an emerging new technology. It seems that people are either for AI or against it, with no middle ground. You can’t turn around without seeing arguments both for and against AI.
Let’s look at a few.
The creative community (writers, artist, musicians) are all screaming about AI taking their jobs. They fear that an AI can produce a full-length novel, or the cover for said novel, in a matter of seconds, where as it might take a human to do the same thing in months (novels) or days (cover art). Or what if it can crank out a series, like Game of Thrones, or Outlander, in a matter of minutes? Non-stop, 24 / 7? The world would be flooded with AI stories with no room for human written stories at all. And what if the AI turns those stories into TV series, complete with AI generated casts, and settings, and soundtracks?
AI can produce some good writing, but a bit on the bland side. It can create artwork, but has a tendency to add extra limbs on people and animals. It can create music, but I haven’t heard a track yet that as grabbed me and made me fall in love with it.
They are also concerned about plagiarism. Most of the AI models have been trained on vast amounts of content (trillions of items) available on the Internet. The Internet has nearly every piece of human knowledge in it (finding it can be a chore) and so it has been scraped, and consumed, by Large Language Model systems (like ChatGPT, for text, and Midjourney, for images.) These systems are not really coming up with anything original. They are parroting the most likely response given a prompt. So, they are reusing all that information that was scraped and consumed.
Accuracy is another concern. Most time it will return information related to the input the user enters. But sometimes it goes off on a wild tangent and ‘hallucinates’, giving answers that are not accurate or completely wrong. The answers might sound good, but they might not be right. So, what if a AI writes an article on vaccinations, with incorrect information in, and the slacker who was supposed to write it took the easy way out and said ‘let the AI write it.’ Then that article gets published without any fact-checking and is disseminated to the public. That could have major consequences.
Privacy is another matter. Companies have built profiles of each customer for decades. Now turn an AI loose on all that data. It could put the right ad in front of you at all times, specifically targeting your desires. It knows what you’ve bought, when, and how often. Then it ties into your social media and online streaming accounts so it knows who your friends are, your political leanings, your hobbies and interests, what you watch. You sit down to watch your favorite show and you keep seeing products you regularly buy showing up everywhere. (So does everybody else.) And just wait until it gets ahold of your medical records.
These are all valid concerns.
Now on the flip side of the coin, there are a few positives.
AI could automate simple, repetitive tasks letting people free up some time to work on other more important things. For example, sending out bills and invoices at the end of each month. Calling patients to remind them about doctor appointments. Ordering groceries and having them delivered. A lot of these things are already handled through automation, but are generally initiated by a human. Let the AI handle the whole system. Or build an AI personal assistant that is tuned to you and your daily activities that can handle scheduling, sending emails, etc.
AI can provide insights from data. There was a program that analyzed police calls to determine where and what crimes happened when. The police found certain neighborhoods that had high crime. By using this information, they changed their patrol routes to cruise those areas during those times and crime went down. Apply this to other datasets. I think we’ll find problems that we don’t even know we yet have.
If AI already knows all about you, that could be applied to giving you better customer service. It could tailor your experience with the store (or business) to make things go smooth and keep you satisfied with their service.
I’ve talked before about creating a Fantasia-like animated movie based on Holst’s The Planets. I’ll likely need AI to produce the characters and sound and animation. But what if I have simpler needs? Maybe I need a logo designed. I could use AI to generate a few examples of what I’m trying to get at, then show those to an actual human artist that can then design the logo for me.
AI is a tool, like any other tool. It can be used to create or destroy. Yes, there are many sides to this argument and things to be discussed about the use of AI. The only thing I can say for certain is that AI will get better. It may even get to the point of being a self-aware Artificial Generalized Intelligence, what most people and sci-fi movies think of when they think about AI – something that rivals human intelligence.
As for myself, I’m optimistic about AI. I think it can help solve problems that we humans can’t seem to settle on. Yes, it could be used to bring about a fascist, surveillance-state dystopia. Or it might usher in an age of plenty and prosperity. It will probably end up somewhere between the two.
What about you, my Hordeling? Where do you fall on the spectrum of AI adoption? Leave a comment and let me know.
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