Is AI Dangerous? Unveiling the Risks of Artificial Intelligence 

The appearance and explosive growth of artificial intelligence is shaking the world. Many debates have erupted internationally about the risks versus rewards of leaning too heavily on this technology. However, it seems inevitable that AI will become a part of daily life as every industry is rapidly integrating it into their operations.

Regardless of which side of the debate you fall on, we must understand AI's potential risks. This will help us push technology in a direction that minimizes its danger to society while still enjoying the convenience and innovation it brings to our lives.

Does AI Have Bias?

We think of computers and programs as emotionless entities devoid of bias. The image of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator springs to mind. This calculated coldness holds true for traditional programs because they're designed to carry out repetitive, unchanging tasks.

However, AI's greatest strength is its ability to learn and adapt. This means that the program constantly analyzes datasets and changes accordingly. Unfortunately, these datasets are often rife with human bias that seeps into the AI.

Machine learning models take from historical data, inheriting the biases hidden in them. For example, a criminal justice algorithm employed in Florida automatically doubled the risk factor of African-American defendants compared to their white counterparts. This was true even when all other factors between the two were the same.

Amazon even had a hiring tool that favored applications that used more traditionally masculine words. The AI was trained on a 10-year collection of resumes, most of which came from male employees. This had the unforeseen effect of teaching the AI to favor similar applicants more heavily.On the other hand, there are advanced AI based pre-employment screening tools playing a big role in recruitment with avoiding biases. This tool are helping organizations hire on a diverse scale. 

Removing bias from AI is a massive problem for researchers. Creating an all-encompassing definition of fairness is nearly impossible, meaning AI must weigh factors according to its use case. This responsibility raises the question of whether a human should decide what's fair or if it should be left to the machine.

How AI Disrupts Society?

Integrating AI into various industries raises concerns about its impact on employment and the economy. Advances in AI have the potential to displace jobs in many sectors. Some speculate that the first positions to be replaced will be delivery drivers and service professionals.

To back this theory, Uber has started working with Waymo to put more autonomous vehicles into their fleet. This partnership isn't planned for the far future but is active in California and parts of Arizona. If implemented broadly, AI could leave many people without jobs. It's not hard to imagine the societal upheaval that would occur as millions of positions are simultaneously eliminated.

Proactive measures such as reskilling and upskilling programs are essential to mitigate these risks. Governments, educational institutions, and businesses must collaborate to prepare the workforce for the evolving job landscape. Also, fostering an environment that encourages innovation and creating new, AI-related job opportunities can help balance the equation.

AI and Copyright Infringement

One of the biggest ongoing debates is whether products made by AI infringe on other's intellectual properties. The issue goes back to how AI creates something. Rather than taking inspiration in the human sense, AI searches for millions of matching ideas and attempts to combine them coherently.

So, if the user asks for a painting of a woman at the supermarket, the AI collects countless images of women, supermarket aisles, and how people act in supermarkets. It mashes together aspects of all of these references and creates a seemingly new image. However, the components for this "new image" still originated from copyrighted photography and art.

Recently, a group of authors opened a lawsuit against OpenAI because the company used excerpts from their books to train the AI model. Even Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin joined the suit after OpenAI generated an outline for a prequel to one of his books.

Developing clear guidelines and regulations to address copyright concerns related to AI-generated content is crucial. Determining ownership, establishing attribution standards, and defining the limits of AI-generated creativity are vital components of creating a fair and ethical framework for using AI in content creation.

Loss of Human Control

There's growing concern over humans losing control and relying too heavily on AI. Some businesses altogether remove the human element from advertising and only use AI to guide their strategy. When adopting revolutionary technology, finding the thin line between utilizing a tool and losing control is tricky.

Ensuring that AI systems have built-in fail-safes, ethical guidelines, and mechanisms for human intervention is essential. Striking a balance between automation and human input requires legal and philosophical debates, two conversations that are hard to reconcile.

As AI takes on greater responsibility, it becomes more critical to have the right people managing it. Processes like background checks are essential when vetting personnel as those applicants could influence the datasets used to train an algorithm. RecordsFinder offers a comprehensive "people search" to pull up an applicant's publicly available data.

AI's Role in Cybercrime

It's not only legitimate businesses benefiting from artificial intelligence. As much as AI helps enhance cybersecurity, criminals are also using it to create more undetectable attacks.

The main focus is AI's impact on phishing messages. These emails or texts trick the recipient into revealing sensitive information and often lead to identity theft. The messages typically impersonate an authority figure or close acquaintance to make the target more compliant.

Historically, phishing attempts have been easily recognized. They're often filled with grammatical errors and cliché requests. This is because the criminal sends tens of thousands of vague emails, hoping for one or two successes. They're playing a numbers game.

But AI is changing the game.

Services like ChatGPT, WormGPT, and other generative AI tools can create compelling phishing emails. By analyzing a database of professional emails, AI can mimic a company's format, language, and tone. Additionally, editing programs like Grammarly can automatically correct grammatical errors without input from the scammer.

These advancements mean that the generally taught rules for identifying phishing attempts are quickly becoming obsolete. These old rules may become a liability as people expect to see a crudely crafted email and won't be as wary of more polished attacks.

There Are Both Risks and Rewards for AI Use

While the potential benefits of artificial intelligence are vast, we must acknowledge the attached risks. Even if AI starts automating the majority of processes in society, humans must always be ready to course-correct. After all, it's our world that these programs are building, and we must ensure they're building them the right way.

Artificial intelligence is just one of the many rapidly changing technologies of the world, and keeping track of everything borders on the impossible. RecordsFinder has an impressive catalog of articles highlighting the most important technologies to watch!