The notion of ‘ethical’ AI remains a contentious issue, with proponents claiming certain tools are more ethical than others, but is this truly the case?
While proponents of generative AI claim that certain tools are more ethical than others, I’m not convinced that this is the case. The ethics of generative AI use can be broken down into two main issues: how the models are developed and their environmental impact.
The Problem with Data Collection
To power a chatbot or image generator, an enormous amount of data is required. However, the decisions developers have made to obtain this repository of data are questionable and shrouded in secrecy. Even so-called ‘open source’ models hide the training datasets inside, making it difficult to determine how the data was accessed.
Lack of Consent and Environmental Impact
AI companies have typically behaved as if consent from creators isn’t necessary for their output to be used as training data. This is despite complaints from authors, artists, filmmakers, YouTube creators, and social media users who don’t want their posts scraped and turned into chatbot sludge.
The development of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to the emergence of numerous companies specializing in AI research, development, and implementation.
Some notable examples include 'Google DeepMind', 'Microsoft Research' , and 'Facebook AI' .
These companies invest heavily in AI research, hiring top talent from around the world to advance their technologies.
According to a report by CB Insights, 34% of startups focused on AI have received funding within the first year of operation, indicating the growing interest in AI innovation.
Furthermore, the environmental impact of generative AI usage is equally concerning. While it may represent a small slice of humanity’s aggregate stress on the environment, gen-AI software tools require vastly more energy to create and run than their non-generative counterparts. Using a chatbot for research assistance contributes significantly more to the climate crisis than just searching the web in Google.
Human activities have significantly contributed to environmental degradation, with greenhouse gas emissions rising by 50% since the Industrial Revolution.
Deforestation and land-use changes account for 15% of global carbon emissions.
Pollution has led to the loss of biodiversity, with species extinction rates increasing by 100 times over the past century.
Climate change affects ecosystems, leading to more frequent natural disasters and altering weather patterns.
It is essential to adopt sustainable practices to mitigate these effects and preserve the planet's resources for future generations.
The Road to More Ethical AI
While it’s possible that new approaches could lower the amount of energy required to run gen-AI tools, the big AI companies appear more interested in accelerating development than pausing to consider less harmful alternatives. So, how do we make AI wiser and more ethical rather than smarter and more powerful?
The answer lies not in making the AI itself wiser, but in cultivating more ethical development practices and user interactions. This includes fairly compensating people when their work is used to train AI models and considering approaches that have a lower environmental impact.
Ultimately, the line between human and machine is blurred by using humanlike terms and phrases to describe what AI tools do. But it’s essential to remember that AI doesn’t think or reason in the same way humans do. The ethical aspects of AI outputs will always circle back to our human inputs, including the intentions of user prompts, biases in training data, and how devs teach bots to respond to controversial queries.
Human-AI interaction has become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
AI-powered chatbots are being used in customer service, virtual assistants like 'Siri' and 'Alexa' are integrated into daily life, and AI-driven analytics are transforming industries such as healthcare and finance.
According to a report by Grand View Research, the global human-AI interaction market is projected to reach $15.7 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 39.6%.
As technology continues to advance, humans will increasingly interact with AI systems in various aspects of life.
