By Cristina Meyaart
With modern technology advancing each day, artificial intelligence, or A.I., is gradually becoming more of a concern. There is a large variety of issues artificial intelligence can and will create, including ethical dilemmas, the spread of fake news, and the elimination of millions of jobs.
The question of whether A.I. should be taken seriously in fields such as the performing arts has been a popular discussion as of late. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) along with the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) were previously on a strike starting in May 2023 in response to these concerns. As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced, it has posed a large threat to the entertainment industry because it can be programmed to perform the jobs of millions in less time and at a much lower cost.
This would mean thousands of writers and artists would be out of work and the movies and television shows released would be much less authentic and almost entirely produced by a formula.
An additional concern that A.I. poses is the mass production of fake news that is extremely misleading and occasionally hard to dispute.
In today’s world, anybody is able to make a prominent figure say or do what they want simply by downloading an app on their phone. A person can also easily ask A.I. to create an image with a given scenario or plot. The technology used to create these false circumstances is available to just about everyone.
In an incident earlier this year, a falsified photo of an explosion at the Pentagon in the United States went viral on Facebook and Twitter. The disinformation spread quickly and caused panic, resulting in a large dip in the stock market. Although the markets recovered soon after, the entire situation shed light on the capabilities of artificial intelligence and the growing threat it has become in today’s media.
Artificial intelligence is dangerous, unethical, and has created a culture of mistrust in the media through fake news and counterfeit images and videos.
