Let's Talk AI

The good, the bad, & the ugly of those two letters.

Artificial Intelligence.

It’s everywhere now. Well, actually it’s been everywhere for years. We’ve marveled at the use of CGI (computer-generated imagery) in the background of films. Each decade since the 50s someone has played around with it on film (yes, even Hitchcock in Vertigo) all the way to JarJar Binks in Star Wars in 1999 and then it blew up from 2000 to present. No need to actually burn down buildings on screen any longer or use real animals when CGI can do it in post production. All of this was film studios making great use of technology. 

We’ve also had movies about the subject for years as A. I. the movie came out over 20 years ago and I, Robot the year after that. Artificial intelligence has been in our lexicon for decades with scientists thinking about it as far back as Alan Turing in the 1950s.

AI is not all bad. There are many places where it can truly be used for good. Listen to doctors and scientist speak of how it can aid in those fields and it’s mind-blowing what they believe it’s going to do in the next 10-15 years. It can be truly be a positive in so many ways and I’m excited to see how it’s going to assist in finding cures for diseases.

If you’ve been using social media filters the past five years or so, you’ve already been playing around with it. We were told that was simply foreign countries trying to take our likeness (maybe it’s true with each TikTok filter you use), but many say it is mindless fun. I even dabbled below. I also have no issue when people switch out the background on a photo in photoshop or other apps: again, all part of artificial intelligence.

But 2023, it felt like it is suddenly on steroids. ChatGPT is all over, generating answers to questions as close to human as possible. (Targeting students is just one use of this as AI can write an entire paper.) Writers are on strike now to fight from having AI take over their jobs. Actors are upset with studios who want to use their likeness for those in the background over and over while only paying them once. Black Mirror did an episode on this very thing this season called Joan is Awful which came out in June (filmed end of last year before the strike) calling out this very practice.

AI is being used to change what political people say and do making us unsure of what is real and what is artificial. While some like these photos below may seem harmless, it feels so dangerous as that can and will be taken to lengths that will amount to no good. 

AI is also being used to eliminate jobs. One example is that you can upload photos of yourself and get professional pictures that were never taken of you. (*I’m not using these photos for anything professional…did this to show how lifelike this can be.)

So somehow I think we need to be able to balance when AI is heading down the wrong path and when it can be used for good. Right now, many see the term itself as the enemy and I get that when you have to picket to save your job. But we also must keep in mind how it’s going to help in so many industries as an amazing tool. Technology is moving very fast and I doubt we’ll even recognize it in ten years. I do take issue when it replaces human jobs instead of enhancing them. I spend months and years often writing a book or a screenplay and some AI function can spit them out quickly. Is this what we want? Is this the future The Jetsons promised? I don’t have any answers, but I do think we need to see the good and the bad of whatever technology is serving up to us. I don’t want to get to the day when my GPS gets so mad at me for not following directions that they take over my car and drive me off a cliff.