Technology is a beautiful tool and over the past few years, we’ve seen the many technological advances make the world a better place and life better for everyone. But like everything there are two sciences to any issue and technology and technological advances are no different. This is where the controversial subject of AI comes into play. While a discussion around AI and the technology itself could be a benefit to humankind many people have pushed back against it after seeing it has been used over the past two years. In a market-oriented push to create new technologies the worries of course that AI will be used for profit rather than be used to benefit people who actually could use it for good. So, let’s dive into it and see how dangerous AI is and if it is as bad as people claim.
While in its most inoffensive form, AI can be used to modify your voice or power a quantum trading platform聽and the meat of the discussion comes into play when we discuss the unregulated use that skirts legality and even crosses over into illegality especially dealing with copyright laws and intellectual properties. You might be wondering what we are talking about currently, but you have seen the result whether it is on TikTok Twitter, or YouTube. We are of course talking about the use of AI to make videos using other people’s likeness other people’s voices and all the other instances where AI is used in such a way. To most people, this seems like a nonproblem since it is only to make funny videos and jokes but there is a real impact that comes from this.
So what’s the big deal? All these AI is a term that is used to flaunt the technology although it is not an AI since it is not intelligent nor is it conscious. They are simple algorithms that are made to learn from datasets to reproduce based on trends. This is why if you feed AI programs that produce images you will see them take aspects of the data set it was fed because it is not able to learn from the data set and are only able to reproduce it randomly or follow patterns that are taught to it by the data set it is fed. So far so good. All of this seems quite harmless when you think about it. Simply put things into the computer and the computer does something new and different with it. The problem with this is that a lot of AI programs that have been monetizing their services have been using datasets to which they do not own their rights.
So what does that mean concretely? It means that a lot of these AI programs fly in the face of by taking people’s artwork or people’s property and words such as their voices or the art that they have drawn themselves and feeding them into a robot or a computer program to create facsimiles of their work or their voices. This is problematic for multiple reasons and first and foremost is that when it comes to visual artistry these generative programs are simply taking away the work some people did without their prior knowledge without credit and mostly allow people to go around them to create a cheap copy of what they do.
Product people the discussion around AI is dangerous is more akin to silly discussions about AI taking over the world like in The Terminator but the biggest issue is how it will impact our culture and the effect it will have on art. Unless this use is regulated AI could not only be seen as a financially cheaper way to get visual content produced will cheaper quality of course but it would allow companies and people with money to not pay artists who are already not paid enough. The same goes for voice actors and actors as well and we see a lot of pushback against such use, especially with the sag-AFTRA strike that is going on to this day. While the pushback by artists is a welcome sight in this discussion the absence of any opening from the production companies when it comes to reducing the potential arm of AI to artists is somewhat worrying.
So when we discuss the dangers of AI this is a real alarm that could be caused by its use, especially in the eyes of those who have no interest in preserving art or benefiting others but instead making more money. Over the past few weeks, we have seen productions even start to use AI versions of actors that are merely scans done of them as background filler and shows which is dangerous for the old entertainment industries since background work is often where a lot of actors start so by cutting out this part it will make it so much more harder for artists and actors who are dreaming of breaking out into the industry. Only time will tell our regulations will protect those artists and out will affect the use of AI in the future.
