As artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm, advancing at a truly breakneck pace, many have begun to worry about the many unsolved issues that have continued to plague AI softwares.
One issue that AI has continued to accelerate is misinformation. Although misinformation is spread daily across social media, AI has the ability to take that information and intensify its effect, making AI and social media a dangerous mix in the age of smartphones. AI can make the misinformation look more professional and reliable, according to Harvard Kennedy School. AI also has the ability to generate and advertise photos, which can spread and convince people to believe in something false. Generated AI photos are beginning to become more and more realistic as it grows, which makes it hard to distinguish between real and fake. When AI makes photos to promote propaganda, it can mimic certain styles that can persuade people to change or shape beliefs.
According to Virginia Tech Engineer AI has the ability to influence people’s decisions. These decisions can be influenced by advertisements that the AI’s algorithm thinks would influence you to purchase an item that you wouldn’t have purchased earlier. It can also change viewing habits and change your decision making because it might keep showing similar things to change your views.
(AI Generated Image of Eggs by susan-lu4esm from Pixabay)
On top of this, AI also can have biases in terms of how it was coded or how it learns. This is because the person making AI has their own opinions and bias which could make its way to the AI. This bias can be based on racism or just some person’s view on something that changes the AI’s decision in how it supports a certain side of an argument or shows only one side of an argument.
Due to the many issues mentioned above, many experts have called for a halt on the development of AI, believing that it only worsens many of the aforementioned societal issues such as biases, discrimination, and misinformation. AI inevitably learns our biases and can even bring in new biases, the University of Oxford states that “an AI recruitment programme might favour men for a job in computing, because it has learned most computer experts are men.” On top of this, AI not only creates misinformation, it can also lower the costs and amount of effort needed to create and spread misinformation. However, despite the cost decrease, some developers have actually stopped using AI generated answers because they are incorrect.
AI can also have a major impact on the job market, with it having the potential to take over ordinary people’s jobs because it’s a robot and doesn’t have human needs. This could be shown in jobs like a cashier because why would the owner of a company pay more for a person to work shifts and only a few days a week when they can pay a AI powered Robot to work all day every day for much cheaper. Companies are built to make a profit so if the most profitable way of employment is a robot with AI controlling it, why wouldn’t you pick that over a human who needs weekends off, can get sick,takes vacation days, and doesn’t work everyday because they need breaks.
Overall, while AI could be a transformative tool that could help society in this day and age, the deep rooted issues that have remained unsolved with this software continue to make it more of a problem than a solution.
