I’m conflicted on the usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI). I think it is a great tool that can overcome the barrier for many people between imagination and creation. However, what about how the final product came to be? The inner workings of the machine? What about the future? Will we have one like Star Trek where the AI is the computer, simply a tool that is used by humans, or like Terminator and I, Robot?
I can tell you without a doubt I am hoping for the Star Trek version. But knowing humans and history as I do. I know there is a team of scientists or greedy executives somewhere that don’t care about the future and implications these tools will have on humanity as a whole. Only that it will make them famous. Their names forever associated with this great tool that they made or in the case of the executive, that made them filthy rich.
Think I’m exaggerating?
All one needs to do is look at the various industries, from food production (sugar in everything, harmful chemicals, over processing) to the energy industry (concentrated effort to undermine green energy and downplay the role greenhouse gasses has played in global warming (outlined PDF)) to more local issues in the area of construction (homes built with shady/dodgy construction and/or in areas without securing water, or known for flooding, soil erosion and/or built atop toxic materials). All this happens daily. Not to even mention the atrocities knowingly committed in the past all in the name of science and progress (Tuskegee Experiment).
So while AI is cool. It allows me to make pictures with just a couple of clicks and pressing of keys; Is it a tool that should be used? Especially as we haven’t figured out how to pay the artists whose aesthetics/techniques are being used to create the final product. I mean, no lie, the AI created song Heart on My Sleeve created by Ghostwriter with the mix with Drake and The Weekend was seriously cool. Even though the song and beat was written/composed by the creator of the final product, it also used their AI generated voices. So who does it belong to? Each person played a part yet not all had given their consent. Did the composer/writer need it?
What about if an AI starts showing signs of intelligence will we ignore it, use it or kill it? We have all heard the rumors about Google (click link for more).
So my concerns come down to this, who owns what?
What obligations do these creators have to the rest of humanity, and how can it be enforced?
My concession is that if I use AI generated images and I am aware of it, I will put that in the description.
Look I’m not trying to be running from an Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator or the much more terrifying Robert Patrick Terminator. I’m too old for that. So let’s get some rules and a bit of transparency before it’s too late.
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