AI: The Big Bad Boogeyman or Scapegoat

Written By Raynier Lora

"I am worried that the overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent than us that eventually take control." - Geoffrey Hinton.

In everyone's life, they have been exposed to the frightening concept of the ever-evolving AI whose intelligence would soon surpass that of the human race's brightest minds.

Many media that depict AI, such as the Terminator franchise, portray it as humanity's self-made downfall. However, the truth is nowhere near as severe in those movies as AI itself is not the problem; ultimately, the blame falls on us.

AI, at the current moment, is a tool used to help, but currently, some people are trying to use it as a crutch.

For example, some argue that AI is making students lazier and impeding the development of critical and creative thinking skills. After all, it is as simple as turning on an electronic device and asking an AI chatbot to do all the work.

However, most people tend to ignore the choice made by the student and any reason they might use it in the process, because, in the end, it was their choice to seek it out. AI cannot force itself onto someone, and by accepting that fact, we can try to identify real issues, the root issues. And the ugly truth of the root cause is that people suck, plain and simple.

AI has been around for many years, dating back to the early 1980s, when AARON was created, to be exact. And since then, it has been integrated into many devices we already use, such as ATMs and smartphones, and people have not had issues with it until now.

That was until the corporations saw the dollar signs in the potential of AI. As mentioned before, AI cannot force itself onto someone, but do you know who is forcing it down... The corporations.

Ultimately, every issue could be traced back to capitalism and reveals some of humanity's worst traits.

AI itself did not cause the SAG-AFTRA writers and actors' strike, but the corporations that were insistent on using it to cut costs did.

The same can be said for AI Art and AI Animation: it is always the corporations that are trying to push it, thereby making it bad when it could be used for good.

For example, the critically acclaimed Sony movie "Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse utilizes a form of AI machine learning and specialized software to automate tedious, traditional animation tasks like line-drawing and in-betweening.

So, in conclusion, AI itself is not the enemy. It is important to set AI's limits through legislation, but beware of not seeing the forest for the trees.