Is AI Good Or Bad?: Figuring Out Which Side To Stand On

Welcome to this week’s Deep-Fried Dive with Fry Guy! In these long-form articles, Fry Guy conducts in-depth analyses of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) developments and developers. Today, Fry Guy dives into the harsh divide over AI’s goodness and badness. We hope you enjoy!

*Notice: We do not receive any monetary compensation from the people and projects we feature in the Sunday Deep-Fried Dives with Fry Guy. We explore these projects and developers solely to showcase interesting and cutting-edge AI developments and uses.*

Is AI good or evil?

It’s often hard to tell. On one hand, AI seems to be doing good things for humanity. On the other hand, people are saying that it’s going to end humanity itself! Who should we listen to, and which narrative is correct? In this article, we hope to help you take a step back and sort out this issue.

THE GOODNESS OF AI

You don’t have to look very far to witness the wonders of AI. They are all around us. Many are programmed into your phone, and others you read about during the week. Everyone is talking about AI, and a major reason is because it is incredibly exciting. Some advancements have been so promising that they give us hope for problems we thought were long lost and others grant us excitement for our own lives. Let’s look at just a few!

Medical diagnostics

AI has made massive strides in the medical field. In diagnostics, AI has been emerging as an invaluable tool. For instance, researchers from UC San Francisco found that AI can predict Alzheimer’s up to seven years before symptoms begin. Additionally, Avenda’s Unfold AI software has been proven to detect prostate cancer with 84.7% accuracy, while physicians who tried to detect cancer manually fell between 67.2% and 75.9%. Another study showed that AI did 20% better than conventional methods at detecting breast cancer, while also reducing radiologists’ workload by 44%. These are just a few of the examples that continue to emerge in diagnostics. This early detection is integral for more effective treatment, offering a better quality of life for individuals.

Humanoid robots

Love them or hate them, humanoid robots are all the rage. Most of the time, it is for reasons that amaze the public. Companies like Tesla, Boston Dynamics, Figure, and more have been developing humanoid robots that are capable of helping in dangerous factory jobs to fill gaps in labor and make operations more efficient for companies. In fact, Figure AI’s Figure 02 robot has recently been employed at BMW. Beyond labor applications, however, 1X Technologies has recently revealed its NEO Beta prototype, an AI-powered humanoid robot which could be deployed in select homes later this year. NEO is designed to handle tasks ranging from basic household chores to assisting individuals with mobility challenges. That’s right, robot butlers are coming soon!

Food production

AI has been proven to be valuable in farming and food production. Farmers in South India are using AI to tackle challenges from pest infestations and the demands of feeding a growing population. The AI system provides farmers with timely, crop-specific suggestions aligned with the plants’ growth stages, ensuring they make informed decisions throughout the cultivation process. Additionally, machine learning accelerates soil testing, offering quick, data-driven insights and fertilizer recommendations to optimize crop health. The AI system also provides a direct quality assessment of chilis in the field, helping farmers detect defects and evaluate color, shape, and size. In a span of just 18 months, farmers saw a 21% increase in plant growth per acre. They were also able to reduce pesticide and fertilizer usage by 9% and 5%, respectively.

The ability to perform mundane tasks

More than anything else, people are probably most excited about AI’s ability to do mundane tasks. From answering emails to handling schedules and finances, AI has found a niche in taking tedious tasks away from humans who have better things to do with their time. These sorts of applications are making life just a little bit easier.

Beyond this brief list, AI has already had exciting applications that are too numerous to count. Let’s be honest, many of the AI-powered gadgets and tools that are emerging left and right are pretty cool! However, these advancements don’t come without their downsides.

THE HORRORS OF AI

Although AI has the potential for great good in the world, it also has the potential to cause significant harm in society. Let’s briefly look at some of the ways AI is causing harm.

Replacing jobs

As AI develops skills that surpass those of humans, it has been viewed as a massive threat to replace jobs. This fear does not come without some substantial evidence, as companies of all sorts are beginning to make moves towards AI. Some examples include IBM, which replaced thousands of employees with AI last year, and Google, which has been executing plans to lay off a total of 30,000 this year. These job cuts follow the global trend of downsizing manpower in the technology sector and replacing it with AI. In the past two years alone, over 200 companies have cut over 50,000 human jobs, including tech giants such as Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta. And as AI solutions become more cost effective and easier to implement, small companies with lower budgets will likely follow suit.

Deepfake deception and CSAM

One of the largest public worries has been the threat of deepfakes. These include images that are meant to deceive the public. Deepfakes have been used in a variety of ways, but one of the most damaging has been AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). CSAM has risen over 20% in the past three years, with 36,210,368 reports of suspected child exploitation filed in 2023. Since 2020, the number of urgent, time-sensitive reports (where a child is at risk of harm) has grown by more than 140%. The main reason for this? AI-generated material. With simple AI image editors, people have been generating damaging CSAM images of children. This has resulted in arrests and humiliation for young children.

Copyright issues

Copyright concerns have been emerging all over the place. So much so, you’re probably tired of hearing about them. These concerns revolve around the non-consented use of the image and likeness of actors and actresses as well as the illegal use of journalistic efforts. The claim is that AI companies have been stealing copyrighted materials to train AI models used for profit, without proper attribution or compensation. This has led to a wide range of organizational strikes and lawsuits that have reached hundreds of millions of dollars.

Threat to humanity

Last, but certainly not least, AI has been cited as a substantial threat to humanity. Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” said there is a “50/50 chance that AI outsmarts humanity” and orchestrates our demise. Other experts like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have backed this claim, warning that AI is an “existential threat” on par with “pandemics and nuclear warfare.”

WHY IS THE SOLUTION NOT SIMPLE?

The solution to this divide seems simple: use AI for good and not for bad. Problem solved, right? Well, not exactly. Many of the strengths and weaknesses of AI are intertwined. Take the example of climate change. Developing AI takes a lot of power, and as a result it has been cited as a huge contributor to climate change. At the same time, however, AI has the potential to mitigate the causes and effects of climate change. AI is helping to detect icebergs that are melting, identify and stop forest fires, map deforestation, clean up the ocean, and more. So although AI might be contributing to climate change, it is helping to solve it as well.

The nature of much AI development is like this, where we can’t simply choose to have our cake and eat it too. Take AI image editing, which has the ability to enhance artwork, perfect photographs, contribute to marketing efforts, and find purposes in education. These same abilities can be used to create harmful and deceptive images. The examples abound, but the solutions are much more difficult.

CHOOSING SIDES

At the end of the day, what are we supposed to think about all this AI stuff? Should it excite us or worry us? You might be confused, on one hand being told to hate AI and do everything you can to stop it. On the other hand, you may be amazed by AI innovations and excited about its potential. Both sides may feel like they are pulling you in either direction. But here’s the catch: you don’t have to choose sides, and you probably can’t! AI’s badness is a byproduct of its goodness, so it’s impossible to eliminate all its negative effects without stopping AI’s development entirely. And stopping AI entirely, apart from being an unlikely task, means missing out on innovations which may be extraordinarily good for humanity.

As we have seen, AI has potential for both good and evil. In this way, it functions as a sort of force or power that can be harnessed for either purpose. Some people will choose to use AI for evil, and others will leverage its power for good. In the meantime, pay attention to the narratives being painted around AI, and root for the good in AI, identifying efforts and solutions to minimize its negative effects.