You may have seen generative AI before on social media without knowing. You also may have used it before in the past. Generative AI has been becoming more common and harder to spot everyday.
What is Generative AI?
Generative AI is a kind of AI that was designed to create anything, such as images or text, typically based on a real person’s existing media. A common use of generative AI is AI art. A popular example of this would be those “Brainrot” characters, which I’m sure you have heard of.
Why is it bad?
Generative AI has many different risks. There are two dangerous impacts this article will cover. The first is the environmental one. The use of this kinds of AI requires extreme demands of water and electricity. The increasing number of these AI tools has created the need for high-performance computing hardware which can indirectly impact the environment by its manufacture and transportation.
The second risk is its spread of misinformation. Generative AI can create deep fakes, fake documents, videos, and audios that can cause distress and fake news. This can be very dangerous because of how it can impersonate someone. The misinformation can also influence politics.
If this circulates wide enough, it will be hard to distinguish facts from fiction.
