Potential for AI Doomsday + Other Headlines

Tuesday Digest (08.27.24)

“Summoning the Demon”: The AI Debate Heats Up

Is artificial intelligence an existential threat to humanity? Or is it a tool we can use for the good of the planet?

Those are the questions tech executives, scientists and ethicists continue to ask. Politicians are asking it too, and it’s noteworthy that AI was addressed at both the Republican National Convention and last week’s Democratic National Convention. The development of AI is moving so fast that it can’t be ignored.

Consider this:

• Police officers are using AI chatbots to write the first drafts of crime reports. Now experts are wondering whether these will hold up in court.

• An AI startup is promising ways that AI can provide advertising resources for “overstretched and underfunded” political campaigns.

• Car companies are using AI to improve the predictive accuracy of autonomous driving in dense traffic scenarios.

• The entertainment world is turning to AI for automating video editing and personalizing the viewing experience.

• Users of Grok, the AI system connected to Elon Musk’s X social media platform, were able to use prompts to make very realistic videos of Musk and Donald Trump committing armed robbery.

• Other users on X have used AI to create realistic, explicit images and videos of celebrities and even children on the site.

• Pastors are using AI in sermon preparation, including new platforms like Pulpit AI that turn sermon transcripts into other kinds of content.

Some uses of AI are good. Some are, clearly, evil: They can be used for misinformation, for pornography, and for other types of corruption.

So is AI good or bad?