AI and Authenticity: The Battle for Trust in Digital Dialogue. Dove has done it again. Their latest foray into their self-esteem project boldly states that “by 2025, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is predicted to generate 90% of online content.”
This terrifies me, and here is why it should raise alarm bells for you.
Even if the number is off by fifty percent, that means nearly one in every two social media posts is either entirely generated or augmented by social media.
We are abdicating our ability to think and voice our opinions to technology.
Today, you can have your responses created by AI on LinkedIn, and some programmes automatically respond to posts for you while you sleep. There has been no oversight and no idea of what has been said or to whom, all in the name of convenience and efficiency.
My question to everyone still reading is this: How do we know today what thoughts are authentically generated by human beings after careful consideration, development of thought, and articulation and which are machine-generated based upon the aggregate of thought available to the collective today?
How do we know who has real intellect and insights that can add value to our lives and businesses and who is merely adept at manipulating technology?
Trust is the real underlying issue.
- Who can we trust?
- Why are we trusting them?
- How do we know that they have our best interests at heart?
- How do we know that when we give our trust, they will be up to the task required?
- What are the consequences of trusting the wrong person to ourselves, our brands and our livelihoods?
Maybe this sounds dramatic, but having been involved in technological changes for over 30+ years, I have seen the good, the bad and the manipulative.
Technology is only as valuable as the people using it. It is a tool limited in power to the skills, imagination, and ethics of those who use it. The challenge with AI is that it is getting smarter and better every day, which enables those who wish to use it for good or nefarious reasons to be better at their craft.
Caveat: I use technology, including AI, daily. I am not afraid of it, but I am cognisant of what it can do and how it can be manipulated.
I am not advocating for us to revert to a time without AI, that ship has sailed.
I advocate for those using AI and those interacting with AI to be aware of how you and others are using it.
We need to question more and seek to understand the motivations of those who attempt to communicate with us.
Trust and verify seems to be a good motto.
Realising most people are either misusing technology inadvertently or using it as intended. However, some will utilise technology purely to serve their interests.
We cannot control how they act, but we can control how we react by being better aware of how AI can manipulate our emotions.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This post was edited using Grammarly, which uses AI technology. It is then verified by the author to ensure the resulting changes still represented my original intent.
