The news about the new innovative product by Open AI, Sora, has spread worldwide. Now, AI can not just generate a video but a high-quality video. Also, it is expected its realism is going to grow and improve in a very short time. On the one hand, Sora gathers admiration. Thanks to the software, the imitation of human fantasy can advance to a new level. It will definitely make a leap in sectors such as entertainment, education, marketing, journalism, healthcare, and real estate. It can easily revolutionize content creation by reducing costs and production times, making high-quality video production accessible to smaller entities. Definitely, the range of usage of Sora can be very wide.
However, we cannot ignore the elephant in the room, and in the back of our minds, we realize that it can be dangerous. After the news about Sora appears, users are concerned:
“Me in 2 years watching an AI made a video of me committing a crime. (I didn’t do it.) (The judge is too old to understand AI)”
– Post on Reddit
Even though it is supposed to be a joke, one thing is clear: Such tools, like Sora, can be used to create highly convincing fake content, potentially leading to misinformation, manipulation of public opinion, and erosion of trust in digital communications.
The consequences
No doubt, every progressive technology has its pitfalls, which can lead to a variety of unpredictable consequences. Even before ChatGPT gained the popularity we know today, a strategic futurist Dr. Mark van Rijmenam, in his article in Adello Magazine, claimed:
We are entering a new age where more people will be exposed to synthetic media. It’s a mass social experiment, and we have no idea what the consequences of this medium might be. If we cannot predict or study its impact accurately, there is little hope of protecting ourselves against its dangers.
– Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
These are some of the potential risks and current challenges of generative AI (GAI).
Ethical and moral dilemmas
GAI systems might make decisions that do not align with human ethics, leading to moral dilemmas in critical areas. Let’s come back to Sora. In combination with other technologies such as deep fake, any user (!) in a couple of clicks can generate unethical content that can cost privacy and security and increase cases of defamation.
Misinformation
GAI possesses the potential to significantly impact journalism, particularly misinformation. As GAI systems become more sophisticated, they can generate highly convincing yet entirely fabricated news articles, videos, and other forms of media with unprecedented speed and scale. It’s important to highlight that news is being spread not only by news bureaus but also via social media. Tools like Sora may contribute negatively to the information wars.
Autonomy and Control Loss
The possibility is that GAI systems could become uncontrollable or make autonomous decisions without human oversight, potentially leading to catastrophic outcomes. AI runaway, often associated with the concept of an “intelligence explosion,” refers to a hypothetical scenario where an artificial intelligence system gains the ability to improve its intelligence and capabilities at an accelerating rate without human intervention. This process could potentially lead to the AI becoming vastly more intelligent than any human, achieving a superintelligent state.
Security Risks
The security risks associated with General Artificial Intelligence are profound and multifaceted, stemming primarily from its potential to act autonomously and with capabilities surpassing human intelligence. These range from being hijacked or manipulated by malicious actors to inadvertently developing harmful behaviors due to biases in their training data or unforeseen interactions with their environment.
Supposedly, when there are concerns about certain risks caused by new technologies, the state’s regulation comes to power relatively late. In order to stimulate the appearance of new laws, there must be court cases, which might happen already very soon.
However, there is hope
Despite the range of risks caused by GAI, it would be unreasonable to ignore the benefits of such technologies. This leap in human capability is part of a broader transformation that includes the advent of bioengineering, the emergence of clean energy technologies, progress in education and medicine and many others.
The appearance of new technologies was always associated with fear of the future. Back then, when Photoshop demonstrated outstanding capabilities of image editing, users were also concerned that this was the beginning of the era of fakes. Nevertheless, we learned how to differentiate fake from real with expertise. Supposedly, the same must happen to AI videos and images. With a high probability, there will be tools that will be designed to determine whether the piece of media is real or AI-generated.
The futurist Peter Leyden suggests that as we navigate this era, it’s anticipated that the benefits of AI will outweigh the drawbacks in an 80/20 ratio, reinforcing the belief that humanity will adapt and find a path forward, as it has with past technological shifts. Meanwhile, users rely on regulations and developers’ social responsibility. The future of AI will unescapably be linked with risks and ethical breaches. Nevertheless, with time, we’ll learn how to regulate and minimize them.
