Yes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been rapidly advancing these past few decades. Recently, in 2023, it’s been getting to a point where it’s concerning just how much AI can achieve. ChatGPT, for example, is a chatbot developed by OpenAI that gives answers to anything inside of ethical boundaries. AI softwares and programs have been gaining mass popularity recently, with ChatGPT being one of them. ChatGPT is one of many AI softwares or programs that has been gaining mass popularity recently due to its capabilities with generating inauthentic content.

Art and artistic expression is a creative skill possessed by humans and is in danger from AI. Some programs such as Midjourney or DeepDream allow users to insert a prompt which generates an image—or in some cases, different variations of the same prompt—based on what the user inputted. The article “‘It’s the opposite of art’: why illustrators are furious about AI” written by Sarah Shaffi—an editor for TheGuardian—states that AI-generated images use existing pieces of art to base their image off of using datasets such as LAION-5B. These AI-generated images come with concerns regarding what constitutes genuine art if it can be generated easily. Artists have started to share concerns on the “legality of AI image generators, and about how they have the potential to devalue the skill of illustration.”

Art faces serious issues of genuinity as these programs continue to develop and generate more images. Artists as a whole may become obsolete since AI art can be generated in an instant by anyone. Shaffi also explains how AI art can base their images off a style of a certain artist or “the work of another artist” if the user includes it in their prompt, “further blurring ethical boundaries.” As a result, artists lose their style whilst art loses emotion and human nuance.

Alongside art, AI places serious risks on the music industry. AI has reached a point where it can generate entire songs by themselves, lyrics included. Christian Poole, a writer for ThinkingWest states that, with a simple click,“an algorithm can be run on hit songs in various genres to generate new songs.” With this, AI can replace existing artists by producing entire songs within minutes, creating entire albums by the hour and even new music genres from scratch. 

There is the argument to be made that AI cannot replicate genuine human emotion that artists incorporate in their music—and that’s fair. However, as AI continues to advance and generate more content, it’s safe to assume that AI can potentially replicate the style of an artist almost exactly. It’s happening with art—so what’s stopping AI from taking inspiration from existing artists and their music?

Both music and art face issues of misrepresentation and it’s become increasingly difficult to determine whether or not something was made by AI. However, AI’s risks don’t stop there.

Currently, AI is also capable of replicating the voices of essentially anyone, as long as it has access to existing recordings of said person. This creates the potential for anyone to manipulate and twist the words of prominent political figures, celebrities or anyone they want to. Jeff Hancock, a communications scholar for Stanford University argues that bots are being developed to sound realistic, making it challenging for people to “distinguish between humans and machines in conversations”. This can pose “huge risks for manipulation and deception at mass scale”. Politics and other forms of news are at risk of losing its authenticity once people start to accept content generated by AI.

With social media affecting society more than ever before and causing desensitization to real news, it shouldn’t be too long before society completely accepts AI-generated content as facts. This will not only feed into delusions of those who refuse to accept facts already, but will inevitably ensure that real, genuine media will get diluted by the mass of AI-generated content. It will become impossible to distinguish its authenticity between what content is real and what isn’t.

Along with large-scale manipulation of media, academics and the education system face serious issues with AI. The essay, notorious for its requirement of extensive research and thought, can lose its significance since AI has the ability to write essays from scratch and give answers to almost everything. An article posted by Harvard states that students can start to rely on these programs, “causing them to miss out on important learning opportunities such as critical thinking, problem-solving, proper research techniques, and interaction with educators and peers.” Writing an essay is the product of research and deep understanding of a subject, and if AI can write one in seconds, there is little to no understanding present within the individual.

Students will lose creative and critical thinking skills by relying on AI to spew out the information they need instead of researching it themselves and putting it into practice. Not only does this undermine the education system itself, but it also prevents future generations from genuinely learning—an issue already present in today’s society due to social media.

These aforementioned types of AI-generated content are accessible to anyone with a computer, laptop, phone and internet connection. This means that almost anyone anywhere can create content intended to misinform or manipulate those who view it. In a digitally-inclined society where media has become the main source of many people’s perspectives on a subject, AI will feed into the surplus of fake news and content that already flood the internet. It’s why the saying “Don’t trust everything you see on the internet” exists. With AI rapidly advancing and posing serious threats to society, will it truly be the future?

No.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has garnered more attention in the past few years. Given its evolution to its current stage, its abilities are viewed all over the world. From merely recognizing faces and being able to create databases, AI can create texts, images or audio based on any prompt with no real conceivable limit. 

AI has the opportunity to be one of humanities greatest developments due to its power and sheer capability which can outwork what any human can do. Its capabilities can lead humanity to live in more comfortable minds and be able to have humans work less hard. 

According to Ignitarium, a website that investigates the developments of AI, the raw capability of AI is incomparably quicker than the human mind. The human neuron which works from a synapse—where we receive all information in the brain—quantifies the information it receives and moves it along the neuron chain in five milliseconds. Moreover, Sujith Mathew Iype—Chief Operating Officer at Ignitarium Technology Solutions—further states that a computer’s AI system is 125,000 times faster than the human neuron. 

There are countless jobs that can be improved with the use of AI, reducing the chances of an error or a miscalculation. For example, according to Educba–an organization which writes about developments in technology–in the amount of time one doctor can make a diagnosis on a patient, combined AI systems can diagnose thousands of different cases. AI does not have biased opinions on the decision making process and there is no halt in its work ethic. 

By giving out more precise diagnosis and prescribing treatment faster, it increases AI’s preciseness given how much knowledge they contain. According to the Brookings Institute, a website that reviews developments in government and society, AI systems have the ability to learn and adapt as they make decisions. For example, in the field of transportation, semi-autonomous vehicles have tools that let drivers and vehicles know about upcoming congestion, potholes, highway construction or other possible traffic impediments. 

Vehicles with this technology can take advantage of knowing about the other vehicles on the road, without human involvement. According to the Brookings Institute, the cars can transfer information to each other and allow their allorhythmia to make advanced decisions and collective decisions where the cars know where all the other cars are. 

Their advanced algorithms, sensors and cameras accumulate all of this information and then relay it back to the driver. Also offering them advice through dashboards and visual displays inside of the car. This gives the driver the real time updates of everything that’s happening, allowing the driver and the AI to make informed decisions. 

This could even be extended to the extent where AI creates fully autonomous vehicles where the humans are the passengers and the advanced AI takes care of the whole ride. Furthermore, AI can be developed to an even wider scale where cities and public services can handle emergencies and situations. 

As reported by the Brookings Institute, officials are deploying this technology to make the responses more efficient and analyze and improve the ways to solve emergencies. Public officials see AI as a way to deal with diverse emergencies. Rather than handle service issues one by one, authorities are making systemic changes as to how they view public services. 

TinyPulse, a website that shows developments in the workforce, states AI can return to how a 24 hour day was designed as eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for resting. This would simplify and improve our lives by making us do less busy work that can be solved quickly and efficiently by technology like AI. 

Along with that, AI can eliminate a person’s need to do repetitive tasks and do tasks that are stimulating and require a human’s attention. According to Wired UK–who investigate how AI is being used–RPA (robotic process automation) can be used for numerous applications in the work performed by functions such as settling accounts, data and number processing.

Many inventions have been made possibly due to AI and its efficiencies. With AI only improving year after year, advancements will continue. With the use of AI so far in society, we can only imagine the possibilities of where this technology takes us in the future.