This was written in April 2023 for a communication course, as extra credit.
It is about a 5 min read.
In my lifetime, technology has progressed faster than at any
other point in history. I remember when the internet was new and sounded angry
when it got started, like an accordion that fell down the stairs. I remember a
time before everyone had cell phones, and instead held their heads up to face
the world around them. I remember my family’s first computer and how excited I
was to use it in the mornings and on weekends. As the years have pressed on, as
they are wanting to do, I have watched as more and more technology has come to dominate
my life. My initial excitement has turned into a less than enthusiastic
attitude when I am forced into using it. That said, I have never felt scared
before. That changed when AI became a reality this year. In my mind, AI could
only exist on a spaceship or on another planet, not here and not now. The
ethical ramifications of this technology are currently happening as I type this,
and what is to come gives me many concerns.
AI in advertisements is the first and most egregious way
that I believe this technology will be used in the future. Companies will rely
less on traditional ad campaigns and focus more of their time on targeted media
that uses data collected from various sources to tailor themselves to fit each
person. Advertisements work because they exploit a person’s problems, be they
physical or mental. If a person is overweight, they may feel worse about
themselves after watching an ad that shows people skinner and more attractive
selling gym equipment. It is already well known that young women have serious
body image issues directly related to ads that do similar things. The ethical
dilemma comes from the prevalence of AI ads. How much information is too much
to know about a person that is a target for these ads? What is the effect of having
highly targeted ads bombard a person until they buy a product? How many
targeted ads does it take to qualify as corporate harassment? We do not know
these things yet, but the inevitability of AI ads presents a is deeply
problematic and ethical dilemma.
AI in education is already becoming a problem. Students that
use AI to complete assignments do not learn the skills they need for further
education. So, then students will become dependent on the tool to complete
their work for them, and they will then take these issues into a professional
career. Theoretical production will increase but practical applications of this
knowledge may cause serious issues. The ethical ramifications for this kind of
AI use are more obvious. Who will be the first doctor whose degree was the
result of AI educational assistance, and would you trust them? How will a
financial firm, whose employees use AI, deal with a crisis that does not have
any digital data to back it up? How do we test a human’s intelligence if all
testers have AI assistance? What happens when the ethics of the AI that
controls life support come into conflict with the human’s who is dependent upon
them? It may not seem problematic yet, but it is coming.
AI in art has produced more work than the entirety of the renaissance
period, and it isn’t even a year old yet. Art forms from paintings to music are
being generated by AI hobbyists at rates that overshadow professional studios.
It is projected that the art industry may face an incredible struggle in the
years to come as real art is lost in a sea of AI reimaginations (NYTimes). The
time it takes an artist to create is dwarfed by the time it takes the AI to
create a similar product, and its alternatives. AI can also replicate styles of
artists that have built an identity with said style, gutting them of the
quality that makes them unique. AI art has become indistinguishable from
traditional art in almost all areas, and this is just the beginning. What
happens to Art when a computer can express human emotion more accurately than a
human can? What point does Art have in society if everyone is Michelangelo,
Monet, or Picasso? Who owns the art that an AI generates?
Lastly, what about prejudice. The framework of AI functions after
it has been fed information, the framework can then interpret this data on its
own to create “thoughts.” When people are fed incorrect or prejudicial
information they can and will use it when forming their world view on a topic.
If that same information is fed into a machine there is no reason to think it
will do any different. The AI will be corrupted and spew harmful information.
This has already happened with AI in the past and is happening again now. A
chat bot called TAY AI became racist in under 24 hours a few years ago and was
built by the industry’s largest computer giant, Microsoft. Tay became a Nazi
that hated Jews and minorities because it was fed toxic information by users on
twitter (Microsoft Blog). As of now there are people who hate members of the
LGBT community using AI to write hateful poetry, songs, blogs and video scripts
to try and argue for their bigoted position. In the UK, transgender people are
beginning to face serious prejudice from their government due to online hate
campaigns fueled by AI (Parsons). How long will it be before AI stops hating
some of us and starts hating all of us? What kind of world will be created if
hate for a people is successful at changing the opinions of the educated who
should know better? How long until the AI agrees with the worst of humanity,
that genocide is a desirable outcome?
The future has always been unknown to us until it becomes
the present. Maybe these issues will not arise at all as AI creators build
counter functionality into the systems they create. However, rules are made to
be broken so it is likely that malicious AI will exist, and we will have to
deal with it. As of now it is not unethical or illegal to unplug an AI or turn
off the machine, but it is possible that one day it will be. We will have to
define what consciousness is, and then use that definition to police this
technology. We may have already spawned humanity’s greatest leap forward as a
species, but we should be careful not to lose ourselves to it. The ethics of AI
are not well known, and ill defined; and that will be one of the many duties of
my generation to determine.
Sources
Learning
from Tay’s introduction - The Official Microsoft Blog
"Learning
From Tay’S Introduction - The Official Microsoft Blog". The
Official Microsoft Blog, 2016,
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/03/25/learning-tays-introduction/.
Accessed 28 Apr 2023.
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