Photo by Kelli Tungay on Unsplash
Technology has been evolving rapidly since the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Today there is just so much that we can do with it, which is amazing and fascinating. Unfortunately, some of those things now happen at the expense of people’s jobs and even lives. Several AI-based software for art recently started trending on social media
An example of such software is Lensa AI, which has become popular on Instagram. Most users don’t know that Lensa steals human-drawn art and uses it to create artistic renditions for them via a technology called Stable Diffusion Model. Artist Master Kim Jung Gi’s art got fed into an AI model on October 3, the day after he died and without his family’s consent. This violates intellectual property. Artists across social media have now started speaking out against the practice and the technology. Without regulations, AI apps can steal and use art for profit without artists’ consent and without crediting them.
Another case in point is ChatGPT. Never heard of it? Well, get ready because it’s on target to revolutionize the internet. It will rival Google as a search engine, and it will use AI to decide what the best answer to a search query is instead of allowing the user to pick through all the millions of options. This sounds a lot like another Big Brother iteration via AI.
The app is even able to write school reports and papers for students. Microsoft is looking to integrate it into its MS Office products. Perhaps a ChatGPT bot will reply to all your emails. The lack of accountability gets bigger and bigger, and now it’s being brought to the individual level. Does anyone remember Max Headroom from 1987, the TV series with Max Headroom an AI-generated media personality as the main character?
As technology seems to insist on playing a bigger and bigger role in all our lives, do we get a say in this? Should there be regulations that limit the integration of technology into our personal space and our personal culture? Are we humans to become slaves to machines? How do we exercise our human rights, those rights to be unencumbered by technological enhancements? Are we enjoying this ride or are we being led by the nose or fooling ourselves? Do we need so much technology in our lives? If not, how do we control this AI bastard?
