Artificial Intelligence--A Blessing or a Curse?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a hot topic of controversial discussion for many industries. Both professionals and novices are deciding whether to use it or how much to use it to make their personal and professional lives easier. AI refers to technology that allows computers to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, like learning, reasoning, and problem-solving.

Although it seems new, the concept of AI has been around since the 1940s, with the advent of the Artificial Neural Network. It is a series of interconnections that learn to solve problems, and the more they learn over time, the more efficient they become.

Today, the most popularly used is Generative AI, which helps increase efficiency, boost productivity, and strengthen engagement. Examples are ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, and Grammarly. These powering operations can create new data by analyzing our communication patterns. It can power chatbots like ChatGPT to give human-like responses and is getting better at interacting with us. They can generate text, image, video, audio, code, and more. Movie and music suggestions, face and object recognition, and personalization of social media feeds are among many of its uses.

As with any tool, AI has challenges and concerns around accuracy, bias, privacy, and ethical use. Often, we take it for granted that it will be a panacea to solve many of our problems, but we need to be reminded that it is merely an aid to human intelligence. Al cannot feel or think on its own without human input. For instance, chatbots like Chat GPT are only sophisticated sentence completion apps that give logical answers, making it appear human-like. However, AI can never replace the human mind.

We must understand that becoming overdependent on technology may cause ethical harm to ourselves or others. That's why it's important to understand AI's limitations to avoid any problems.

Chatbots often do not provide factual information. Known as AI Hallucinations, these bots use probability to predict the next word, sentence, or paragraph based on what they are being programmed and not necessarily based on sound research. It cannot assess truthfulness and accuracy, so those using AI to generate content need to be careful. Someone researching a topic you write about using AI may catch false information you are unaware of, which could affect your credibility.

AI can be biased and offensive. Often, it is trained on data that is racist, hateful, and biased. For example, Microsoft created a program called Tay that learned to make offensive and stereotypical comments because it learned to do this by interacting with users. Luckily, Microsoft eventually discontinued Tay, apologized, and promised to institute safeguards to prevent hateful speech from being built into AI systems. Many are now calling for better safety measures.

Benefits of AI. Despite some drawbacks, AI offers benefits that have helped improve and enhance systems in various industry sectors. It has revolutionized healthcare, such as discovering new drugs and identifying new cancer cells much more reliably than humans. Used in many other fields, such as software programming, animation, law enforcement, journalism, and agriculture, it helps better educate by summarizing huge volumes of information to enhance and speed up work.

AI for Writing. AI in the creative arts process has allowed many writers, translators, graphic designers, illustrators, and others to streamline their works through improved rewrites and images. The following are guidelines to adhere to when using AI for your writing:

• Writers should commit to maintaining standards by only using AI for generating ideas, editing, and enhancement, not as a primary source of work.

• If using it as a primary source of work, rewrite it in your own words and use your voice to reflect individual tone.

• If using a considerable amount of AI, you must disclose to your publisher, such as Amazon/KDP, and your readers. Disclosure is the best course now until all AI programs are required to use only licensed work.

• Respect the rights of other writers by not using AI to mimic other work styles or infringe on copyrights and trademarks. Show solidarity and support for other creatives, such as illustrators, translators, actors, and voice-over artists.

• AI is a text completion tool that shouldn't be used for research because you cannot trust its accuracy.

• Be aware of and check for potential socioeconomic, gender, and racial biases that could cause harm.

• Draft a clause in your negotiations with publishers that prohibits using your work for AI training.

• Fine-tune AI models on your work and use that fine-tuned model to generate more work in your style.

Although AI is a useful tool, it is only that. We need to learn to use it wisely if we are to use it at all. Curse or blessing? It’s up to us all. Until governments and regulators pass laws across the board to ascertain AI is being used ethically and legally, it behooves us all to be aware of its pitfalls and use it responsibly.