AI = Artificial Intelligence. Do you use it for everything or nothing at all? Should you never use it? Can it be used properly? What are the problems?
Does Artificial Intelligence Take People’s Jobs?
It can replace jobs but not humans. Artificial Intelligence pulls from sources to give people information. That source is from humans. Someone has to write an article or make content surrounding a topic before AI takes it and it gets used for other people to write with it. Imagine if no one made their knowledge personal or came up with their own ideas. Artificial Intelligence would not exist if not for the people who made it and the range of resources and images out there.
We need to develop our own thinking ability too. We need to learn and be informed about new information everyday. If AI could do EVERYTHING, there would be no other technical skills needed in certain jobs apart from knowing how to use AI. For example, as a web developer, you still need certification or a degree. You still need to figure out the clients needs and tailor it to them. It may be harder to get a job at entry level, but it’s not impossible yet.
Please Use Artificial Intelligence Properly
Research
It helps to practice skills in your free time you need for your job or school. Using credible, online, or offline resources such as books to study materials you may already be very good at. Even knowledgeable people practice and prepare! You can ask AI for sources depending on the topic.
For example, for coding references I can use w3schools.com. Even if you don’t have a degree, that doesn’t limit you from learning more. You could even impress the recruiter for the job you want since they could say you’re willing to learn. By the way, feel free to check out my article on job preparation. These days with some jobs, the company says one thing in the job description, yet overlook it later. You could apply for one position, yet when hired you’re doing multiple positions. Or, you might not need to meet all the requirements.
Image By – Olga Tutunaru on Unsplash
Making Something Original [Tip For School]
Image By – Jan Kahanek on Unsplash
In ELA class, we would practice free writing whatever we could yet on a time limit (3 minutes). Time management trains your brain to come up with ideas faster. In turn this will help avoid AI most of the time and replace it with your natural human capabilities. You can also practice getting faster at whatever you need to get faster at in your free time.
Layout Examples
If you are designing a prototype (example) to show to a client for a website, poster, or anything else with words, there’s nothing wrong with using it to generate random text. Simply use it to visualize where you’ll put actual information. Just don’t use it for the official product or assignment for school.
The Cons
Multiple Sources
Artificial Intelligence takes information from everywhere. For example, if I type a question about hair in Google, Google AI will respond with a vast amount of sources. These sources could be science based studies, blog posts from hair care brands, YouTube, and more. Google does link the sources it pulls from in it’s results. We need to discern which resources are truthful & helpful by clicking on links provided and researching further for the full truth.
If I’m working on any project or assignment, I rarely use Artificial Intelligence to help me. These days, on most search engines, it comes up in the search results at the top of the page. I still look for the links it’s pulling from or scroll down to see each website result.
Teachers
Teachers are also concerned about students using it for classwork. There’s one thing they say a lot these years, “We know when you write something with AI. You don’t know those words. You can’t explain the concept of your words to me either”. They’ll ask, “can you explain to me further about this subject?”, then the student says they don’t know.
Keep in mind, academic teachers also tell us they run our work through several AI checkers.
Environmental Impact
According to iee.psu.edu (Penn State Institute of Energy and the Environment), Artificial Intelligence needs LOTS of electricity from fossil fuel, lots of GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), and water.
This creates greenhouse emissions and e-waste. Going on and on about this topic alone would cause me to be off topic. Consider reading the article to learn more!
Photo By – Gabriela on Unsplash
Defects
Here’s an example pertaining to a music video that allegedly used AI.
Disclaimer
For privacy reasons, I am not going to mention the company, group, or the name of the music video. This is not intended to create more backlash towards them but simply to inform and educate. However, people who saw these types of videos before will relate to this experience.
Image By – Nejc Soklič on Unsplash
Music Video Content
The illustrations representing the people in the group and the backgrounds behind them moved weirdly or had defects (in the faces, etc.) in some scenes of the MV which gave it away. This is a key element in AI-generated videos. I have seen this before with fake news and fake animal videos on YouTube.
Those parts DID NOT look like something a professional animator would publish for a professional music video made with VFX. The sad part about it is, those scenes did not make sense for the concept of the song, nor did it work with the normal scenes. The company got huge backlash and released a different version without those controversial parts. Why was this situation a problem?
AI In VFX
Using Artificial Intelligence these days is said to speed up the process of certain things for, in this case, VFX. This is also said for Adobe Photoshop (a photo editor) in my class. However, I always find myself needing to fix little things after receiving help with masking or generating backgrounds with the prompts I give it. Again, it’s trained to take from online images it sees, with stereotypical results. I end up just working with the photo itself and doing the masking myself.
This AI-help could also produce an unprofessional result with VFX through rotoscoping, masking, and additional backgrounds. The animator of this MV could improve their VFX skills by not solely relying on AI to speed up the process (if that’s what they used), considering the defects of the animations were very noticeable. They should have fixed the defects or go without AI completely.
Again, no hate to the company and group. This is for informational and educational purposes. The take away from this is to learn from your mistakes and improve your own skills even if you have help. Improving matters more than mistakes.
Be Careful
Being knowledgeable about Artificial Intelligence is a good thing. Current times require current skills. There are so many out there: Chat GPT, Copilot, and more. If you’re a web developer, be prepared to use the one they use for your job. This is needed to get some aspects of the project done faster than doing it from scratch. Then, you build off of it with your own work through edits, client needs, and wants.
However, it always feels good when you make something original or from scratch. Even if not everyone appreciates your work, you can build a good conscience by saying to yourself, “I made that myself!”. I love building a website from scratch for fun, yet I also understand that’s not feasible these days for work as emphasized from several people at school. To be honest, I’m still gonna try to do work without it (99.99%) because I don’t like it.
By the way this article was written without AI. That’s one of the only things keeping me from not getting more points on my SEO…
To conclude, remember the 3 risks of Artificial Intelligence:
- It disrupts the environment with greenhouse gas and e-waste
- Your integrity could be at stake in certain situations if you claim work that isn’t yours
- You’re work may look cheap and unprofessional if you use it
- You risk getting the wrong information for research if you don’t go to the source