I believe that AI generated content is here to stay. Companies like Microsoft and Google are investing heavily in the development and integration of AI technologies into their own offerings and services.
Artificial Intelligence has come a long way. The journey to artificial intelligence began decades ago. The overarching objective was to create a machine that could interact with humans in a way that the human could not reliably determine if the “person” they were talking to was a human or a machine.
The current AI systems are remarkably good at doing exactly this. Many times, the results from AI generated content are indistinguishable from what skilled humans produce. Not always, and the content is often easy to identify.
How They Work
AI systems are built on learning algorithms that are trained using massively large data sets. At least initially, this learning is supervised. The human developers guide the process along until the system is intelligent enough to start learning on its own, without supervision. These systems observe patterns in the data sets, draw conclusions based on those patterns, and then adapt and refine the process and what is known.
There Are Risks
AI systems learn from existing data sets. If the data sets are faulty, the results will be as well. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
A few of the concerns that are being raised and discussed are:
- Loss of Human Touch – AI generated content may lack the human emotion and personal touch of manually created content.
- Potential for Misinformation – AI generated content may contain inaccurate information.
- Lack of Quality Control – Without proper oversight, AI generated content can contain errors or be of poor quality.
- Ethical Concerns – AI generated content can lead to unethical practices, such as bias and discrimination.
- Security Risks – AI generated content can create potential security risks due to vulnerabilities in the technology.
All of these concerns are valid and we should carefully weigh them as we use the technology.
AI Is Not a Panacea
AI systems such as ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and others can greatly improve many aspects of content creation, but they are not a panacea. Generating content that is good and engaging while making every effort to mitigate the risks still requires the touch of skillful, knowledgeable, and empathetic human writers.