One of the major concerns that people have expressed over the years with AI is the potential for misuse. There are many areas in which AI is proving to be very beneficial. At the same time, it has the potential to be used in a way that is beyond the ethical and moral issues we normally focus on.
It took less than six hours for a drug-developing AI to
invent 40,000 potentially lethal molecules. Researchers put AI, normally used
to search for helpful drugs, into a kind of “bad actor” mode to show how easily
it could be abused at a biological arms control conference.[1]
Another example is how video footage and pictures captured
without people’s knowledge are misused. There is recording everywhere now, and
in some scenarios, when it is combined with AI has been used to collect information
about individuals without their knowledge. If you use a smartphone, you know
that every moment is already captured. The places you visited, the things you searched,
and even your conversation are captured. We all have a digital footprint, and daily it
is increasing with the data we provide from our smartphones and smart devices.
Many of us have encountered this problem of advertisements
showing up on something we discussed with someone a few days ago. These days I am tired of the Ads on YouTube pushing
some political agenda. I normally see Ads that do not match my views. The same
things have been repeated so often that, at times, I feel like it is similar to
the technique used by some regimes to brainwash people by repetition.
In most cases, AI is used to achieve marketing goals. It is
when it starts to manipulate and control people that it becomes an issue. We
need to be careful, but we also need people who AI to be responsible and
accountable. This is where I feel government regulations may help. The sad part
of it is that many governments around the world itself are misusing AI to
advance their agenda. It is a challenging issue to find a solution. An awareness
of this issue would help us to be careful when we give out our private data to big
companies with no second thought.
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