By Randi Huang
IVN intern
Artificial Intelligence
“I’ll Be Back” – T-800. As I rewatch the Terminator, the thought of time traveling and the theme of the dangers of robots. It reminded me of the artificial intelligence of our modern time. You might have Amazon Alexa, Google Dot, or even iPhone Siri. Although these devices are not necessarily AI, we are slowly approaching a point in society where we have begun to rely on AI more than ever before.
I remember how my English teacher spoke about how some students used AI to write their essays. In the past, it was clear as day that these robots spilled their water and slipped on it countless times. It was only a year ago, and AI has advanced so much that some scientific research papers are written with AI where it is undifferentiable whether it is human or not.
Big industries, such as Nvidia, a computer chip manufacturer, have started experimenting with creating machines that can think independently. As AI technology advances in the tech industries, it is slowly creeping into the creative field and other industries. There is a rise of anxiety that many jobs, especially artists and photographers, will be automated by AI.
With current AI technology, ordinary people can create videos, photos, or paintings with only a short description. I believe these “artists” are not artists. AI developed by feeding in information from other works from the internet. These involve taking pieces or styles and copying the work of others without permission. Some may argue human creativity is also inspired by others. However, the difference between a real artist and an AI artist is that creative skills are involved when recreating or painting from an inspired art piece. An AI artist merely needs elementary-level vocabulary that replicates a mediocre digital painting.
I believe AI would take over monotonous and repetitive jobs like cleaning (even though there are now robots for that). However, AI technology is overreaching its capabilities on humanity. Robots do not have stories and chemical emotions involved when creating passion. An AI movie would have no passion behind a filmmaker. An AI book would have no passion behind the writer. An AI song would have no passion behind the composer. Passion is what makes us uniquely human.
I am cautiously optimistic about the rise of AI technology as it would give many people more freedom away from the 9-5 cycle. Office workers, Engineers, or doctors would rely heavily on AI, and they would free more of their time to work more efficiently on improving our lives instead of punching numbers on Microsoft Excel like mindless animals. I believe the world could benefit from AI, but like the Industrial Revolution, it would give us another set of problems.
In the Industrial Revolution, it was more leisure time instead of farming your food, making your clothes, or worrying about your necessities. In exchange, humans work to make money for these necessities, and humans are being exploited by exploiters of America. With the AI Revolution, I believe it would also give more leisure time from mindless work.
There are still consequences for advancing AI. It replaced many jobs like a programmer, and AI could eventually become more powerful and intelligent than humans. There would be two ways you could interpret this AI Revolution: The incredible innovation of Artificial Intelligence or the next sequel of the Terminator franchise in reality.