Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly prevalent in our daily lives, leading to concerns about its potential impact on employment, disruptions in different industries, and the spread of political ideologies.
WION spoke with Kevin Baragona, the founder of DeepAI.org on how one should envision the future of AI in the next decade. DeepAI is the first online text-to-image generator and recently added AI Chat. It offers free access without any registration and has upgraded plans as well.
Deepfakes and the threat of AI propagating political ideologies
As much as it is interesting to create pictures or videos of others that appear real, the DeepAI.org founder said that the trouble is when they’re used to malign others or mislead people.
“Deepfakes in politics could have broad-reaching ramifications such as creating media of leaders declaring the next world war.”
He called on deepfakes made without prior permission to be declared illegal . “No one should be able to steal your face and voice.”
He pointed out how there is already been at least one instance where a fake image of a bombing of the Pentagon caused the stock market to drop.
“The most obvious is creating deep fakes of political leaders and those in the public eye. They could be generated stating various positions that differ from their actual platform. These could spread rapidly through social media and online communities and never be fully corrected.”
For instance, he said, there was a case where a deepfake of Ukrainian President Zelensky manipulated Fed Chairman Jerome Powell into revealing information.
Lightning-fast AI tech
Speaking on the ease with which AI can be put into use, the expert said, “Prior to AI, designers could have readily created the same image with Photoshop. But with AI text-to-image generators, it’s much faster and anyone can do it.”
He calls AI as the “nuclear weapon of software.”
“With nuclear weapons, just because you have the blueprint of how to make a nuclear bomb, doesn’t mean you have the materials or production facility to do so. In many cases, these aren’t seasoned criminals, but kids in need of guidance. But, if they’re allowed to go unchecked without proper oversight and discipline, they could cause a lot of harm to others,” he said.
Disruption in transportation, education industry
The expert said that transitioning to AI navigation will also result in large-scale job displacement in the personal and commercial transportation industry. “Drivers will simply not be needed anymore,” he said.
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He continued speaking on how AI can also bring about disruption in the education sector. The DeepAI.org founder said that online learning platforms are experiencing sharp declines as students can use online chatbots to access expert training on any subject.
Speaking on his own AI application DeepAI.org, Baragona said, “Even at DeepAI, sometimes we get inquiries from people writing computer applications using our API. We just submit their coding questions to our own chatbot and it fixes it for them.
Job displacement
Baragona opined that job displacement isn’t always a bad thing, as new jobs will be created along the way.
On the future of work in an AI-dominated world, he said the question is, will the workers be able to retrain themselves and learn new skills.
“One job that’s been created is Prompt Engineer,” he said giving an illustration of jobs created courtesy of AI technology. “Even just 12 months ago prompt engineering wasn’t interesting to anyone outside the AI research community.”
AI revolution also comes with more job opportunities for unskilled people. DeepAI.org founder said, “AI could create jobs in that it allows people who aren’t as skilled at a task to provide professional quality work in it.”
AI regulations
DeepAI.org founder Kevin Baragona has been calling for regulations on AI, and part of this should entail providing the legislation support and financial resources to enforce how this new technology is used.
“We need our cyber crime police units to be able to identify, stop and prosecute all forms of cyberattacks, including those conducted with AI tools.”
