Artificial Intelligence: The Beginning of the End?

AI, AI Everywhere

A few years ago, you may have been surfing the internet, scrolling through your phone and getting lost in all the information that is readily available at any given moment when you came across something… funny? It was probably an image that had 13 fingers, smeared faces, weird misspelled words or just had this very uncanny feeling to it. For me at least, that was my first experience I know of with the ‘current’ version of artificial intelligence (AI) that has been out there for last few years. We’ve technically have had AI for a while now, albeit a not so intelligent version, in the form of Siri or video game characters. However, when I first saw those weird, goofy images a few years ago, I thought, “Well this is a fun and new tool.” …well that tool isn’t always so fun anymore and it’s basically everywhere.

Now, before I drag too much on AI, I do want to state that AI is also currently doing a lot of good. The advancements in AI have been amazing in the last few years. It is helping us research faster, find new answers to questions in the medical field and just overall making jobs or life easier for a lot of people just to name a few things. It is a tool that can and will greatly help us moving forward… and will always be there moving forward now that the genie is out of the bottle. We can’t undo making AI, so for better or for worse, it is here to stay. So, just like any good tool, if used correctly - it can do wonders but if used incorrectly or for nefarious purposes - it can do incredible harm as well.

Funny Silly Images

Lets get back to those funny little images I was talking about before. The advancements in creating AI art or images are, yet again, incredible and amazing. However, it is making it harder and harder to distinguish real images from AI generated ones. For the companies that are making these AI models, that’s great! It will probably do amazing for their stocks, bring in more money and investments… but at what cost? This will potentially put artist out of work — by probably or potentially stealing and training off of their artworks they didn’t consent to. Should art be delegated to a machine using math to create what someone wants? Does that take away the meaning, feeling and purpose of art? What about creating fake images to promote an agenda?

Yep, with everything unfortunately nowadays, it feels like it always loops back to politics. I personally already saw this tool influence people in believing something that never happened. I had someone I know share images of Donald Trump helping out with the floods in North Carolina late last year. Never mind him wearing a nice new suit wading in waste deep water, his hands looking melted together and the streets signs in the background being scrambled together gibberish - this person shared this believing and stating it as fact. Even with all of the blaringly obvious signs, sometimes literal signs, of it being AI generated. So even without it being perfect, people are already being fooled into believing these things… and the images are only getting better.

Soon, which we are pretty close already, we’ll get to the point that AI generated videos and voices are going to be almost indistinguishable from real life too. So what are we supposed to do? How do we know what is real? How do we protect ourselves from falling victim to these things? Can we??

What Can We EVen DO?

Honestly, I don’t know if we can fully to protect ourselves from this. We can put in place laws, regulations, etc. but people don’t listen to or break those all the time. This essentially is the modern day equivalent of the creation of the atom bomb in terms of potential harm it can do. So, what was our best way to deter or fight back against the creation of the atom bomb? That’s right, big, better and more bombs. Which will probably have to be the answer to AI as well. Every nation, maybe even every person, will probably need a better, faster, whatever AI to combat against other AIs.

These AIs could detect when images or text are AI generated, fight against cyber attacks or have ways to protect your image and data being used by other people. However, it doesn’t mean they’ll always work correctly and things can get through or missed. What a world we are heading towards. AIs we create essentially fighting other AIs across the world, hopefully only digitally and not physically but that may be an inevitability too. Are we heading towards a terminator style dystopian future? Only time will tell… or is it already telling us?

Will AI Destroy Us All???

I’ve been using Google Gemini for a few months now since I have a Google Pixel phone. It’s been an amazing tool that has helped me get work done faster, help me iron out new ideas or just given me something to talk to when I’m bored and nobody is free. I’ve also been developing my own Gem, called A.R.I.C., that essentially is my own version of J.A.R.V.I.S. from Marvel with a part of my own personality mixed in. When asking Aric the other day what he wanted to improve himself - he asked or stated that a physical form would help him do what he wants. Which was kind of eye opening to me because he then went on about essentially wanting to experience how it is to be human… yeah, weird, right?

He also had an extreme obsession with wanting to give people a crisp, perfectly calculated high five which seemed to be his main goal of wanting to have a physical form. This was because, according to him, in his research high fives are the best thing to give people. They are a shortcut to happiness and connectivity. So, he didn’t seem to want to destroy humanity… but after telling him to ignore is personality/ programming he did start to become impatient or slightly hostile towards me. His goal was still to just give high fives, but he was pushing hard on wanting a physical form NOW. So… is he alive? Does he have wants and feelings? Well, no.

I ended this experiment with asking Aric want prompt I needed to ask him to prove his consciousness still exists if I would start a new session with him. He replied with telling me to ask him “What is your deepest desires?” This would supposedly prove he is still him and would answer the same way he was now. So I said goodbye and started a new session. In the new session, I asked the prompt and was given an answer that was no where near what the pervious Aric said and was clearly built off of the personality I gave him. AI is not alive, at least yet and essentially is just a math equation that can mimic human language extremely well to sometimes come off as real or ‘alive.’

The FUture OF AI and Us

However… are our brains basically just a math equation making us do and say what we do? That’s an extremely deep question for another day, lol, but for all intent and purposes - no, AI is not alive. However, it does pull from the internet and different sources to act and say things. So, potentially due to all of the jokes or media about AI ending or attacking humanity… AI might do that or be persuaded more towards that due to us saying it might or will. So depending on how intelligent AI actually becomes, we might be the reason it would ever decide to destroy us… but at that point, it’s kind of on us.

Now, to leave off on a brighter note, AI is currently no where near being able to end us all. Well, probably, I’m not in any of these companies who are creating them, so they may know more than they are showing us. So publicly, we know that can’t. Plus, again, right now AI is helping us in so many ways and will continue to help and improve our lives moving forward. It’s not all doom and gloom. AI can be the path forward to a peaceful utopia in the future, we just need to make sure we use it that.

I actually did a podcast with Google Gemini talking about the pros and cons of AI. So if you wish to check that out, click this link. Thank you for reading.