My Thoughts on AI
Lately, I've been seeing more and more AI content, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore my utter disgust for it. From fabricated stories to deceptive photos devoid of human creativity, I don’t believe people truly understand how AI works. If they did, they would be a lot more hesitant to use it. It doesn’t create anything new because it simply recycles. It is trained on existing content and photos. When someone asks it to make a family photo or a caricature, it’s putting your data and photos into its system. Suddenly, it has access to your face, your children’s faces, bodies, and whatever details you've shared. It will use that data not just for you but for anyone using it. People don’t realize that it shares whatever it creates or learns with itself. Someone could ask it to generate a photo of a random child, and it could use your child’s face as a reference. The thought of that alone disturbs me.
As for art, AI is essentially stealing other people’s work and spitting out something devoid of emotion. It feels lifeless, and I believe any creative or artist should be worried about AI profiting off their work while simultaneously stealing future job opportunities. This applies to any kind of art, from music, to drawings, to painting, to photography, to books, to poetry, to movies, and so much more.
When I see AI stories being shared on Facebook or other AI content, I think people deserve to be exposed to real human stories, not something compiled by AI using pieces from actual stories. It's becoming increasingly difficult to tell what is true from what is false. I’d rather see stories written by real people presented as real, as opposed to fake stories being presented as real by AI. Not only that, but I don’t support plagiarism in any form and AI is somewhat plagiarism because it recycles. This includes fictional stories as well, id much rather read fictional story that was once inside someone’s head instead of a story that AI thought you’d like that is mostly regurgitated storytelling.
Now some people may say that we humans already do what AI does when it comes to art. We take inspiration from the music we hear, the art we see or watch, and so much more. The difference is that we humans add our life experiences to it. There is an intent to what we choose to recreate or use as inspiration as opposed to AI that is using statistics. Steven Spielberg may borrow a shot from another director or film that he saw, but he knows why he is doing that. There was an emotion that he felt and thus felt compelled to replicate that. AI can’t do that, it does not understand content, emotion, nor does it have lived life experience to add to it to make it unique.
That being said, I haven’t even mentioned the weaponization of AI to spread harmful content. The best and most recent example I’ve seen is an AI-generated photo of the singer Bad Bunny in a dress while he sets fire to the U.S. flag. It’s pretty clear what that photo's purpose was, and I just hope people begin to take steps to recognize what is real and what is not.
Finally, my last problem with AI is that it utilizes more power and resources than anyone realizes. It is extremely bad for the environment, and it’s causing a spike in the cost of what were once easily obtainable components, such as computer RAM, making them nearly impossible to find or buy at a reasonable price.
To conclude my rant on AI, I just want to say I don’t think it is all bad or that it shouldn’t be used at all. I think there are real uses for it, but AI doesn’t present itself in a truthful manner. I think it can be a helpful tool, but the over reliance on it is the main concern. These AI companies want people to rely on it, teach it with their information, and take away jobs. It is not a surprise that almost all the recent Super Bowl ads were advertising AI tools or utilizing AI in some form. There is not enough regulation, laws, or general understanding to protect people from AI, and we will see the true consequences of overusing it in the coming years.