Artificial Intelligence ushers in new era of digital distrust
By Zion Rufus
Amid the excitement of technological innovation, the world has also shifted to an era of absolute depreciation of confidence in AI-powered products, and the ability of their creators to protect consumers, offer trustworthy products, and provide transparency around data usage.
This is the view of professionals who are concerned about the rapid development of artificial intelligence and how its technologies are leveraged for executing malicious intents, as some AI-powered products demonstrate the versatility and manipulative potential of image creation tools.
These concerns follow the release of extremely personal AI-developed images of former U.S. President Barack Obama and former chancellor Angela Merkel. The controversial images showed Obama and Merkel spending a day at the beach together.
“As it becomes increasingly difficult to identify things as true or false, in the very near future, people will no longer be able to rely on pictures, recordings, or any form of information on the internet,” Arasumuhaideen Rasik, component and technology engineer at Decathlon said in a conversation.
“Al can create more realistic photos with a simple prompt. Anyone can easily create and circulate fake images without image editing knowledge and an enormous amount of fake images can be created in a shorter time,” Rasik added.
Since the release of GPT-4, OpenAI’s updated version of its text-generating artificial intelligence program, fears surrounding deception in AI such as deepfakes, fake news, and algorithmic bias have skyrocketed.
Micheal Kane, a regulation and compliance officer believes Al deepfaking has the potential to threaten the fabric of society.
“It comprises the threshold of reasonable doubt which means that any recordings/ CCTC cannot be relied upon as evidence. We will soon be at that stage where only DNA,” Kane stated in a comment.
As much as AI algorithms can be used to eliminate bias, promote transparency in decision making, and facilitate more direct and participatory forms of democracy by allowing citizens to vote on issues in real-time, Mehrdad Boloorchi, founder of Know-How Advisory Services explains that Al could also serve as a tool to consolidate power in the hands of a small elite, especially if the technology is controlled by large corporations, very rich megalomaniacs, or authoritarian governments.
“The impact of Al and related technologies on our future is not clear, we need to be extremely cautious,” he said, pointing out that AI technologies can also be used to bias citizens, and monitor and control their activities, or automate decision- making processes in a way that favors certain interests over others.
Weighing in on the AI generated images which also portrayed former US President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden in a friendly embrace, Stephen Greenslade, founder of ICS of the Bahamas Co. Limited pointed out that this phenomenon will create much chaos before it is properly understood and ethically used.
“I think this is very dangerous territory. The global mindset by and large is still developing and the speed of technological advancement continues to confuse it. Careful is the word of caution on this one,” he urged.
Concerned that large language models could potentially be used to drive large-scale disinformation, and create offensive cyber attacks, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had warned that the technology also comes with real dangers as it has the potential to reshape society.
He asserted in an interview with ABC News that regulators and society need to be involved with the technology to guard against the potential negative consequences of AI.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk had earlier shared similar concerns regarding the consequences of AI. For years, Musk had warned people about the threat of AI, maintaining that the danger of AI is much greater than the danger of nuclear warhead. He had previously said AI was a bigger danger than North Korea and that it was a risk to the future of human civilization.
At a bipartisan governors conference in Rhode Island in 2017, Musk urged politicians to impose proactive regulations on AI development.
“You say, ‘what harm can a deep intelligence in the network do?’ Well, it can start a war by doing fake news and spoofing email accounts and doing fake press releases and by manipulating information… I have exposure to the most cutting edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned by it. AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation rather than be reactive,” he said
According to Musk, the solution is to increase regulatory oversight of the development and implementation of artificial intelligence as soon as possible.
“Since the release of ChatGPT 4.0, it has become clear that its ability to collaborate and work is constantly improving. If it is programmed to create and write a false message without the user’s knowledge, it will be difficult for the user to determine what is true and what is false,” says Yu Chen, adding that it can lead to unpredictable problems.
In order to prevent this, the corresponding legal system must be refined if artificial intelligence is to be further developed in the future. (No rules, no order,” Chen said.
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