A.I. Impact On Society

A.I. has come a long way since its creation in the 1940s. In our world today A.I. runs many businesses and is a part of many people’s daily life. We have found many useful ways to use A.I. but are they having a positive or negative impact on us?

Engineers used A.I. to teach robots how to make reactive human expressions.

A.I. technology is used every day and paired with M.L. (machine learning) it makes it even scarier. Currently, we see many people who are addicted to TikTok which has taken over as one of the top social media apps or entertainment apps too which TikTok considers itself to be.

“Simply, the company trained its AI to know the user almost better than they know themselves. With its users’ permission, TikTok knows where they live, who their friends are, what cars they like, what makes them laugh, who makes them laugh and who makes their friends laugh. They know a lot. Feeding all this information into its algorithm lets the app show you the content it knows you love”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/12/09/how-your-business-can-take-advantage-of-tiktoks-success-with-ai-and-ml/?sh=6ce3929b6f93

I believe when you look at what TikTok is doing with A.I. you can easily see positives and negatives. Being recommended content you enjoy is definitely a plus, but this could make it hard for you to potentially find new content. My biggest issue with this is TikTok technology is based around just keeping you there for hours. You can ask almost anyone nowadays that you see on the street and they most likely have a TikTok. These people will most likely admit they have wasted more time than they would have liked due to the way the technology works just constantly sending you dopamine of content. This has led some people to addiction which in short hurts their actual life where it is no more just an app.

This week we covered Replika which is an app that you basically feed bot information and it can become whatever you want it to be just by talking to it.

“Among its popular traits, Replika is deeply customizable. The gender, looks, and name of the chatbot character are up to the user. Users can even determine the type of relationship they have with this virtual character. Options include friendship, mentorship, romantic relationship, or “see how it goes.” As mentioned in the introduction, it is estimated that around 40 percent of the 500,000 regular monthly users choose the romantic option”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-future-of-human-machine-relationships-is-already-upon-us#:~:text=Options%20include%20friendship%2C%20mentorship%2C%20romantic,friend%20or%20a%20conversation%20partner.

I believe Replika could have a positive impact, but this impact is completely reliant on the consumer. I believe having someone available to talk to is a very important aspect of life. Many have reported that Replika has helped them through tough times, feels like humans, and is quite knowledgeable. I believe all the negatives of Replika are very present in the Black Mirror episode called Be Right Back which is based off of the same concept. In this episode, the main character loses her husband due to what we presume was a car crash due to being on his phone. Next, the main character’s friend signs her up for this bot that will do the same thing as Replika to help with the pain of losing her husband. She was reluctant to use it until she had no one to talk to. The main character starts being addicted to her phone and talking to this A.I. 24/7. We see the distress the main character goes into when she drops her phone in the doctor’s office and it is not working. She immediately rushes home so she can talk to this A.I. of her husband. She is then prompted by the bot that she can go to the next step where she will get an A.I. robot that will look exactly like her husband and act like he did base on the info provided. This is where I believe the comforting part of this whole experience goes south. She eventually realizes this A.I. is not her real husband and gives her more pain than comfort. She can not live with killing someone who looks just like her husband. I personally do not feel I would go through this experience due to how traumatizing it could be. I feel when someone dies I rather move on and remember the good times. An A.I bot can only be so positive until it turns negative and I feel this is clearly shown in this episode.

Question

How do you feel about A.I. and M.L. combination? Would you make a Replika of a loved one or possibly make your future partner?

News of the week

ChatGPT puts fear into the white-collared workers with its newest accomplishment. ChatGPT passed the gold-standard exam required to practice medicine without human reinforcement. Read more here