Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, and always will be, a slippery slope. Yes, it’s available and open-sourced so anyone can use it however they want, but AI has already been used for bad things and can be easily exploited. Before I get into all of that, let’s talk about AI as a whole.
I think it’s wildly interesting how AI is continuously updated and changed; it will always be awesome to hear about people in the AI industry improving the software. Now let’s talk about the bad.
Software like ChatGPT is so lackluster when it comes to actually researching, especially when it comes to kids and teens using it for homework. Specifically for essays, it’s so blatantly obvious when a computer writes something and you try to pass it off as your work. It doesn’t have any personality. It doesn’t have a unique writing style, it doesn’t often make mistakes, and it writes too sophisticatedly about something you are supposed to put into your own words.
AI sites like DeepAI that generate AI images are also super unimpressive; as an artist, you can tell when something is off, especially when image generators were first starting out. You have to input a prompt to what you want the generator to make, like “a dog riding a bike on a cloud,” and the generator will pull images from the internet — whether it’s from fair-use images or from artists that did not give consent — and create the image you want. Plus, the images can look unnatural and weird, especially in videos that use AI. This can be exploited, too.
It’s unfortunate, but some people use AI software to remove clothes from people in photographs — depicting them nude — without their consent at all. I’ve been unlucky enough to see these photos used in ads on X, formerly Twitter.
AI has also been used to content-farm on YouTube, win art contests, and mislead people. The most recent example is the “Willy Wonka Experience” which used AI-generated images to mislead people. People have also used AI-generated images instead of actual product photos on popular online shopping websites like Etsy.
I’m just not very fond of the use of AI; it’s mainly used to be lazy, creepy, and to deceive others. I hope that the software can get regulated to prevent immoral uses of AI and that people learn more about identifying AI to avoid being misled and falling victim to scams.
Louise Skokan is from Minneapolis, Minn.
Their major is undeclared.
