By Farah G. Decano

           

WITH the rise of digital alteration and artificial intelligence (AI), the 21^st century may be considered as the dawn of things ungenuine.  The world will soon be flooded with goods and information that seem very authentic but are actually not.  A decade from now, the real and the veritable may become a needle in a haystack of fakes.

There is an ongoing debate whether or not artificially intelligent machines and apps will be able to replace human work.  Some rely on these programs because they think that persons are prone to errors, biases and moods.   People definitely do not wish to be sidelined by machines or programs. How then should we take advantage of these technological developments and suppress its negative consequences?

AI machines and apps are definitely a boost to production and output.  Their movements and responses are measured, programmed, and consistent.  Because they are in the early stages of development, accuracy cannot yet be guaranteed. This writer tried chatting with an AI Chat App but the latter could not yet maintain a conversation. The accuracy of its answers still needs improvement.   The danger of AI Chats is that students, office workers and yes, even lovers, might just rely on these programs for their assignments, tasks and love letters.

Some columns ago, this writer expressed concern about deepfakes. Aware.com defines deepfake as a “photo, audio or video that has been manipulated by Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to make it appear to be something that it is not.”   It is highly sophisticated that the real movement cannot be distinguished from the other.   This technology could easily be misused under the hands of crooks.  They can spread fake news, cause confusion, or worse, start a nuclear war.

Somewhere in Europe, some AI judges in courts of law have already been tested and were found to be 70 percent accurate.  Litigants can rest their head that the resolution of their case will solely be based on the standards of law that are collected in the AI’s database, free of prejudices or influences.  In reality however, the resolution of a case is not solely determined by legislated criteria alone.  AI cannot yet approximate what human judges can do. The latter occasionally rely on the principles of equity which is based on a universal concept of fairness.  They also use their senses in order to observe the demeanor of witnesses.   How, therefore, can an AI judge approximate equity?  Further, will it be possible for an AI judge to appreciate the humanity of the litigants?

One engineer, who broke up with his girlfriend, was recently motivated to invent A.I. Perel because he could not get an appointment with the world-famous psychotherapist, Esther Perel.  He collected numerous works of Ms. Perel which became the source of his data.  The AI seemed to work for the lovesick engineer because he was able to access his robot therapist anytime for counseling.  While she was impressed by the creation of her AI counterfeit, Ms. Perel says that one must use the advice with caution because the AI is devoid of feelings and context.  Indeed, how can an AI counselor therapist appreciate feelings of patients that are not expressed in words?

This writer is certain that in due time, the technology of AIs will be close to perfect. There will come a time that many things artificial cannot be differentiated from the genuine ones. Humans will be relegated to merely feeders of data to these AI machines.  In the long run, and as a consequence, human brains may shrink due to consistent non-use and reliance on AI.  This author truly hopes that she is not foreseeing a reversal of evolution.

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