Journal 6 – Claire Hubby

October 31, 2019

Journal 6 – Claire Hubby

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In class on Tuesday, we discussed the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) within our groups. This discussion raised some questions for me. But the one question that I keep thinking about is, does AI have the ability to ruin our lives?

Before I go into the analysis of my question, I am going to discuss some of the benefits of AI on our lives because there are a few. One of the major benefits of AI, no matter type it is, AI doesn’t require regular breaks like human would. This means that AI is able to be utilized 24 /7 unlike a human would be. Another benefit of AI is within the medical field. Although there are a number of different advancements, one of them is the ability to detect and monitor neurological disorders. By using AI to do this, they are finding that they get more accurate results than when a human doctor would do it. Also the results come quicker than when a human doctor would do it. This allows more people to be able to get tester faster and to know their results quicker.  Lastly, another benefit of AI is the reduced chance of error. Human error is something that is always accounted for when doing anything, but with the help of AI there is higher accuracy with a greater degree of precision.

One of my main concerns with AI is if it has the ability to ruin our lives. A prime example of this is the use of deepfake. A deepfake is a technique for human image synethesis using AI, or in simpler terms, you can put someones face onto someone else’s face. Below is an example of Nicolas Cage’s face on Amy Adams:

Although this example of a deepfake is funny, it proves how easy and how realistic deepfakes can be. This brings us into my main question of: does AI have the ability to ruin our lives? From my research I feel that the short answer is yes. If we look at this video of former President Barack Obama, we can understand why:

Having the ability to use a deepfake to make a world leader say or do anything can be exteremly dangerous. For example, if a deepfake of Trump was made and in the video he said that we just launch bombs against Russia, then Russia would believe that we did and potentially start bombing us, even though we didn’t actually. This would obviously be bad for many, many reasons, but it’s a good explanation or example of how this technology could ruin, everything.

Another example of how deepfakes could ruin someones live if within the adult film industry, or porn industry. A really popular example of this is adult actress Rapuel Roper, who looks as though she could be Selena Gomez’s twin. This puts her in the position for her videos to get stolen and turned into deepfakes of Selena Gomez. So this how most of the celebrity sex tapes are made. This not only ruins Selena Gomez’s life because she didn’t ask for this to happen to here but also is unable to comment on it because she is such a popular celebrity. But it also ruins Rapuel Roper’s life because her videos are getting stolen to make something that wasn’t intended. Rapuel examples how she is an artist and her art work is getting stole for nothing and she is getting nothing out of it (Baltan).

I do believe there is a way for AI to be safe and supportive of human health and happiness. As I exampled above there is major key components in the medical field that AI helps with which overall helps the quality of human life. So in order to make sure that the negative aspects of AI happen there needs to be some kind of laws around it, since there isn’t anything yet. By creating laws of what you can and can’t do within this tech it allows government to be able to monitor and control exactly what is happening, this way WW3 wouldn’t happen off of a video that a 12 year old kid made in his room for fun. Also, if you try and limit who has access to this tech then it would allow for the monitoring to be easier within the government. There is no reason that anyone should be able to make a deepfake, even if it is just for entertainment. The risks of deepfakes getting into the wrong hands is so dangerous that it’s not worth the entertainment aspect of it.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/01/business/pentagons-race-against-deepfakes/

https://villagepipol.com/horrors-deep-fakes/#.Xbs_P0VKjOQ

https://www.creativebloq.com/features/deepfake-examples