The term AI evokes a mixture of fascination and fear. We marvel at its effects, but we cannot really assess what AI actually is. What it means for the future of our working world. And how it will change our everyday lives and our coexistence as a society.
It is impressive when an AI tool produces a complete blog article from a brief text instruction. Or a photo that looks completely realistic. The system did not invent the image. All parts of this image were created by someone at some point. In the form of a photo or an illustration. Midjourney, DALL-E & Co. only reassemble them. In this sense, the systems do not create anything new; they merely combine existing elements in new ways.
This article is about the concept of artificial intelligence. This article goes into more detail: Do I need AI for my website?
The overwhelmed Stone Age brain
I only have a very vague idea of what AI is. I find it difficult to grasp the abstract mathematical and statistical concepts behind neural networks. AI is not a topic that can be assessed intuitively. Our brains are not designed for that. AI works very well technically, but hardly anyone understands why.
At the same time, the fascination is immense. Here is something you can ask questions of, something you can have a conversation with. Something that has an answer for everything and seems to know everything.
Who invented it?
One unresolved and, in my opinion, very controversial issue is copyright. The training data comes from somewhere; someone wrote, said, coded, photographed, or drew it all at some point. At the moment, there are no regulations governing what data a company is allowed to access for its products. The issue of privacy is also unresolved. The big players read every social media post and every message.
Search engines list the sources that match a search term. With AI, there are no longer any sources. There is only training data, but it is not accessible.
Hallucinations and fakes
To enable the models to calculate this, the training data is divided into countless small pieces (tokens). The systems compile their content from this data scrap and a lot of statistics. The model simply calculates until something suitable emerges. The main criterion here is probability.
This can result in texts that sound credible but have no basis in reality. For example, the AI tool may cite sources that do not exist. These errors are known; they are a logical consequence of the probability methodology. The systems could correct these errors, but that would cost valuable time. At the moment, the errors are being tolerated; fast results are more important to providers than correct results.
AI is also great for manipulating and falsifying information. The algorithms used by social media platforms are the perfect breeding ground for this. Highly idealized images and videos have always been produced in the lifestyle and beauty sectors. AI makes producing such content many times easier. Authentic images are disappearing. Entire platforms such as Pinterest are now flooded with AI-generated photos.
The fact that our brains react particularly strongly to negative news plays a problematic role. At best, AI-generated videos are funny, but they are often provocative and frequently malicious (keyword: deep fakes). In the battle for attention, something controversial will always trump a positive message. Posts that generate negative emotions get the most likes.
The distinction between what is real and what is fake is becoming increasingly difficult. Many people consider AI-generated content to be authentic. This is a massive social and political problem.
Conclusion
AI is just a tool, but one with enormous potential. Potential that is difficult to assess. And that has an impact in a social and political context.
There are many useful applications, such as in medical technology. But the influence of technology on our society is so massive that we need to find political rules for it. All areas of life are affected. We cannot leave critical issues such as political opinion-forming, mental health, or weapons technology to large corporations that are solely focused on their profits.