Artificial Intelligence: The Newest Frontier?

Art 

As mentioned when I described some of the companies above, a lot of art is being generated through prompt-driven artificial intelligence. I put in some words like “Viking King against a stormy sky background,” and it gives me a gorgeous and realistic digital art piece. 

Good–

Many people say that there are some benefits to this. People who do not have the financial means to hire an artist can afford a subscription to an AI program and create their own art. 

Others who lack the skill finally have the ability to create in reality the visions in their head that they couldn’t have otherwise (this is a similar situation that happened when digital art first started becoming popular.) 

Bad–

Art is already a competitive field. Artists put in hours of work and put up their art only to have people ask them to create things for ‘exposure’ etc. It can be difficult to make a living as an artist, and having art at the touch of a keyboard is going to make it that much harder. 

Ugly–

Much of the art that is generated is created using Machine Learning. Basically, you feed the AI images like you would feed cookie monster cookies, and the computer assimilates the data and repackages it to come up with new pictures based on prompts. In some cases, they replicate art that has already been created. Or they completely mimic the styles of popular artists, enabling people to get ‘art’ in the style they prefer without having to contact the original artist or pay them a dime. Until the legalities and ethics of AI-generated art are refined, much of the AI art being created can be considered artistic theft. 

Writing– 

ChatGPT started the ball rolling, but now even Microsoft and other word processing programs are offering AI-assisted writing. What does that mean? It means that when you’re stuck or don’t know what to say, you can ‘chat’ with a bot who can answer your questions, give you ideas, or even write for you. 

Good–

There are some pros to this. Having a collaborator to bounce ideas off of at your convenience is amazing. When you can’t remember that one word, maybe your new AI buddy can pull it up for you! It can answer those pesky writer questions on the fly (What did a toilet look like in 1805?). 

It can also help you streamline a lot of processes. As someone who feels overwhelmed by social media, the idea of having a program to create it for me does appeal–but it also ruins the point for me as well. 

Bad–

The bad news is the programs aren’t perfect yet. That means when you ask any of these cool programs to write something for you, it (like the art AI mentioned above) might pull things word for word from another source. 

Or it might pull from an unreliable source. Or it might not make sense. But, depending on your use for it, this might not bother you. 

Ugly–

Here’s where it gets ugly. Many people are signing up as freelancers or writers and then passing off AI-generated content as their own writing and lying about it to their clients. As a result of this, many people have come out against AI writing and want authentic, human-created content. 

This seems great, right?

 Well, the “AI generation” detection programs they have are also not perfect yet. It means when I submit something to a client, and they run it through a ‘detection’ program, even though I write 100% of my own content and only use programs like spell check and Grammarly to make sure it looks right, I get flagged for AI content. 

How can I avoid such a thing? Stop writing so well, gosh darn it. 

That’s right. I’ve been told I need to write less formally in my business writing. Write shorter sentences. Use more slang. Insert personal experiences. 

My English-Teacher-heart is breaking. 

But the real sticky part that has my brain awhirling is the implication for Education. 

Education–

Technology has always gone hand in hand with education. With better technology, we can give people more access to information. This is great! Unfortunately, it also has downsides. 

Good–

A classroom AI that can answer teachers’ and students’ questions on a whim? Awesome! Perhaps a grade-analyzing AI that can see trends in data and spew it out so that teachers don’t have to stare at test scores until their eyes bleed? Even better! Let’s get those! 

Bad–

Kids are, in general, much more hip to the advancement in technology than their teachers. They know about it first, so they’re using it before we even know it exists. There have already been problems with problematic content on AI chatbots in social media with children. 

But when you give them access to unregulated prompt-based technology, shenanigans are sure to happen. 

Ugly–

This is mostly for the English teacher. 

(I feel like math has already been dealing with this because of programs where students can literally use their camera on their phone to scan a math problem and get the answer).

 Thanks to the new AI programs (which, again, are embedded into word processing technologies like Google Docs and Microsoft Word), you can literally highlight a text and ask for a summary, and it will spit one out for you. You can put in an essay prompt, and it will write it for you. 

Do you see where I am going? Some of the foundational skills for reading and processing information to develop critical thinking are going to be as easy as clicking a button for our kids. It’s going to be even harder to convince them to do things like write a summary, write a paragraph, or analyze a short story when a computer can do it for them. 

These are just a few of the ways that AI technology is advancing and changing things for us. New things are created every day, which is both amazing and terrifying.