By Peter Odeyemi, Junior Reporter
Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen a fast integration of Artificial Intelligence into our everyday lives and in various areas of the economy such as medicine, finance, national security, health care, criminal justice, transportation, education, etc. It has basically worked its way into every area of our lives, or as I would call it, “forced itself on us”. Basically every corporation has engaged in its use, and it’s important we know the many dangers of this new normal we seem to be adopting.
AI is being currently used for a number of everyday implementations such as facial recognition software, online shopping algorithms, search engines, digital assistants like Siri and Alexa, translation assistance, airport body scanning security, and so many others. The “tech bros” are saying “AI is here to stay”, which I partially agree with, but if we are going to completely accept AI as our next-door neighbour, there should be clear regulations or guidelines for its ethical use - as it is beginning to pose a threat to our well-being in different forms, some of which I will describe in this article.
AI currently harms the economic well-being of many people and businesses by taking the roles “that could easily be done by AI” to save costs. It simply doesn’t get tired or sick, neither does it need pay or employment benefits, but at what cost? At the cost of people losing their jobs, at the cost of lack of confidence in your job security as any day and time “AI could take it over”.
Another disadvantage is that it is actively taking away the critical thinking skills of students. As we all know, increased use of AI correlates with increased student laziness because of a loss of human decision-making. Basically every student has made use of AI such as ChatGPT in their schoolwork or projects because it’s much easier of course, but the over-reliance on it takes away our independent thinking capacity and makes us slaves to this combination of codes. With AI doing most of our work, including research papers, assignments, and projects, many more students are persuaded to use the “easy way” and use AI for their school work, thereby undermining education goals. I myself have used AI, specifically ChatGPT, for some of my work, but I got a wakeup call when I realized I was becoming over-reliant on it and gradually minimized my use of it.
Over-reliance on AI also makes us lose touch with reality. I’ve heard stories of people who use AI chatbots like ChatGPT or character.ai as their therapist or lover or “significant other” and have emotive conversations with these bots. AI is completely capable of manipulating emotions to come off as a safe space for these vulnerable people, but this shouldn’t be normalized; let’s touch some grass and seek professional help instead.
An article on Britannica perfectly explained another issue with the rising problem of AI - it feeds off the creativity of artists, publishers, content creators and many others. “AI is especially harming writers, publishers, and content creators. AI chatbots are being trained on online information (obtained through “web scraping” tools) that was professionally created at great expense by publishers, journalists, scholars, and authors, and this often happens without the latter’s permission or compensation to them. This is bad enough, but then the cannibalized content is summarized (often inaccurately, creating what’s called “hallucinations”) and offered for free to consumers as AI overviews (some of which are very detailed and as long as published articles) via search engines like Google, further harming the content creators by decreasing the consumer’s need to click on their sites.” This is true! Often no credit is given to the copyright owner, and this drops the morale of those with creative mindset to produce more of their works.
AI also poses a threat to the environment, primarily through its massive energy consumption. AI technologies, especially large models like generative AI, require enormous computational power for operation. This process consumes vast amounts of electricity, often sourced from fossil fuels, leading to increased carbon emissions which are very harmful to clean air. According to a new study by a researcher, Shaolei Ren at the University of California, the water consumption required for ChatGPT prompts is approximately 500 millilitres per interaction. Supercomputers use this water to cool down as they generate heat while consuming energy. This is just pure waste of utilizable resources, just because you’d rather use ChatGPT to know if your dog leaping on one foot means he’s pregnant, rather than use a search engine.
AI has also been known for spreading misinformation. A May 2023 study by the Brookings Institute found that the AI knowledge sources routinely supported left-leaning positions on hot-button issues including abortion and gun control, especially on X. Meanwhile, AI robocalls were banned by the FCC for imitating President Joe Biden’s voice during the 2024 election. The existence of deepfake videos created using AI has also made it very difficult to discern what’s legitimate and what’s not. Despite all of this, there’s isn’t any active push to place regulations to ensure ethical use of AI.
In conclusion, I believe the cons of AI far outweigh the pros in the long run. Hopefully in due time, regulations and laws are put in place to curb its unethical use.