In the highly digital world of today, new technologies are always coming about. From computers to phones, the internet and AI. Specifically, generative AI.
Generative AI has quickly taken over the Internet. Major AI companies make millions from their creations, such as Character AI, ChatGPT, and Google Gemini. It can answer your questions, can draw for you, and make videos for you.
However, AI isn’t as good as it seems. It steals from anywhere it can get to answer those questions, draw those photos and make those videos.
“In about five seconds three pages came up that had elements of pretty much every book I’d ever written,” David Baldacci said in an article published by the Copyright Alliance. “I truly felt like someone had backed up a truck to my imagination and stolen everything I’d ever created.”
AI had stolen his work, without his permission or any compensation at all. But Baldacchi isn’t the only victim of theft.
Others like Jinga Zang have also talked about their experience with AI theft. “MidJourney has a feature where users can feed it an image, get a list of prompts, then copy & paste the prompt back to MJ to generate derivatives of said image. It reduces my personhood to nothing more than a tag, cycling through a machine. I’m sorry I can’t feel grateful.” Zang said in a tweet, addressing how AI steals and devolves the hard work of artists to just a prompt.
AI theft isn’t just a copyright infringement. AI can steal jobs from writers, photographers, illustrators, animators and even comedians.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks and former chairman of Walt Disney Studios, predicted that generated AI could eradicate 90% of animation artist jobs. That would be hundreds, if not thousands of people losing work and steady income, which could have a negative effect on the economy.
AI has to steal to create, as it cannot create out of nothing. It needs photos, videos and written work by the hands of real people to leech off from. That throws salt in the wound of creatives. Not only is their work stolen, it’s also taking away their source of income as companies view it as a cheap alternative to paying real people.
Sadly, creatives aren’t the only ones at risk. Telemarketers, historians, mathematicians, translators and customer service representatives also face these challenges. And the more we replace these professionals, the less safe things will be.
While AI is often used as a research and fact-checking tool, AI isn’t always correct. It scrapes from wherever it can – meaning, it can gather incorrect information. That isn’t just annoying, it can be dangerous.
In an article by The Markup, an New York-based business chatbot told its users to break the law. “The bot, for example, said it was legal to lock out a tenant, …. In reality, tenants cannot be locked out if they’ve lived somewhere for 30 days”. If it were a real person delivering this advice, these mistakes wouldn’t have happened. And this type of mistake could land somebody in jail, and likely without a home to come to.
On a lighter note, AI is receiving pushback from those who it threatens to replace. As reported by Associated Press, Hollywood writers went on strike for 148 days to combat AI usage, and requiring studios and production companies to say if something is AI, and allowing writers to choose if they even want to use AI at all.
AI is scary, but it isn’t unbeatable. By people making their voices heard, it will likely force AI company leaders to address these critiques. And the youth are already doing this.
In a story shared by NPR WHYY, graduates at Glendale Community College booed college president Tiffany Hernandez after an AI system was tasked with reading the names at graduation – inadvertently skipping people’s names in the process.
They made their voices heard, even if it was just booing. AI wasn’t going to be tolerated at their graduation, especially after skipping the names of their friends and fellow graduating classmates on such a significant day.
By fighting back, AI can be stopped before it gets worse. Providing rules to keep the working class safe, protecting artists, writers and every other creative at risk. People can do something, either small things like telling a friend, or family what the risks of AI are, or speaking up against AI use in their schools and communities. Change can only be made if it is fought for, and this is a fight that people can win.