A TURNING POINT OCCURRED just as we were finishing up our book, The AI Dilemma. New digital tools — mostly based on natural language processing (NLP) systems and deep learning models — were released in rapid succession for free to the public. These generative AI programs include apps like DALL-E, ChatGPT and GPT-3 from OpenAI, along with natural language search engines from Microsoft and Google.
Suddenly, it is easy to create and alter images, text and interactive media within seconds. Millions of people have shared their assisted creations through social media. It is clear that these new tools are already changing habits.
Some creative people regard the new AI systems as threatening. “These generators are created using thefted artwork, and in turn, undervalue the work of the original artists,” wrote La’Kay Hodge, a creator of visual, written and interactive work and a graduate of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. “We can understand the ethics of not stealing art and claiming it as our own, but for some reason, if a machine does it, not a word is uttered to stop it.”
Others find the technology absorbing and liberating. “It is only recently that AI has been accused of harming artists,” said 3ric Johanson, whose title is Entropy Generator at Intellectual Ventures Laboratory. “I’ve heard arguments that it should be unethical for AI to be able to see other people’s artwork in order to make derivative works; yet this is the exact function artists use for their inspiration. Future artists are those that can glitch the matrix and neural networks to make new styles and expressive design.”
We heard many different opinions about the value, promise and dangers of AI while researching our book, but there was one common thread: The technology is here to stay. Writer cautioned us that the movement towards restricting AI “is
