In a world where attention spans are decreasing faster than the time it took to read this sentence, AI has found its perfect market. We live in a time where deliveries are being made in less than 15 minutes in some parts of the world, the interest gives us answers at the tips of our fingers in a time a thousand times faster than we blink and yet, AI is taking over. How when we have so much already, could we want more?

And the kind of more that AI gives? It is not the answers we want with AI, it is the questions too.

In all our luxuries, we have started seeing thinking as a chore too, and why wouldn't we when the world is designed in the very way where the majority population not thinking and not wanting to think, fills the pockets of those who hold the power, and more than that, it makes their power unchecked since no one stands there to protest. So, before you completely lose yourself, read this article, see it as the rescue rope it is meant to be, and pull yourself out.

The Quick Spread

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In 2022, OpenAI made ChatGPT accessible to the public, since then, AI has spread to all. sectors of human life and development faster than any virus. This release led to the release of thousand other AI chatbots and we began seeing the rise of its use in sectors like IT, education, banking and more. It was almost as if it was the magical answer to all the falls in productivity and economic problems we were facing after COVID, but it was a much more dangerous virus and we, in the moment, did not recognise the long term impacts.

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AI: How It Really Works

While a lot of people understand how AI works, a large majority does not. The information you prompt the AI to give you is not its own, AI is not capable of producing ANYTHING.

All the information in the databases for AI comes from the internet, library archives, websites, articles and even the academics' most dreaded Wikipedia. What is received by the prompters, you, is the synthesis of all of those things—while now we can get the links it accessed, in the older models, you could not and that caused a lot of issues due to misinterpretation of context and more, but even now, people rarely ever check the sources.

AI: Quick-Fix

With all of its issues, initially it was seen as a quick fix for all your problems. It seemed as if it was such a fun little tool that can speed up all your laborious tasks. It is faster for AI to process information than any normal human being, it often takes longer to prompt the AI than it takes for us to get the response. Especially for a lot of the tasks, it seems as if AI can present a completely unbiased situation and give you a very factual analysis.

The seemingly objective lens and miles faster processing speed seemed to be the most efficient and effect answer, especially as the models were further adapted and improved. Additionally, AI's adaptability and pools of resources adds to its ability to provide accessibility in education and information across the world. It enables people without specialised background to understand difficult theories and concepts at the tips of their fingers in seconds, helps students without hiring expensive tutors, among thousand other aspects of accessibility.

Ethical Problems

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As the use of AI increases, so does the pressure on all of these companies to improve the technology and that brings up to the great big monster—machine learning. Recently machine learning has brought to focus a lot of ethical and privacy issues.

In today's context, every single interaction one has with the internet is data on them that is likely being used to train a form of AI, with or without their permission because the loopholes are all in the fine print that we never read. A lot of social media organisation are doing what in behavioural economics is referred to as a default option or a pre-set choice, a common use of this is in countries in Europe like Austria where all citizens are automatically registered to be organ donors and they need to "opt-out" of the choice instead of opt for it which is often disregarded by people and leads to a larger number of donors.

This strategy is applied to social media apps where the option to opt-out of the machine AI learning programs is intentionally made challenging and kept hidden to encourage people to avoid making the efforts. However, other than issues of machine learning and privacy, there is the obvious issue of plagiarism, copyright and ownership. AI "creates" art, images and information using and often without crediting original creators and these issues are only enhanced with machine learning since EVERYONE's data is being used.

It can also escape paywalls and access books and academic papers without the necessary subscriptions or purchases using pirated websites and sources. This, in addition to all the issues encompassing AI, adds to the devaluation of human effort.

Environmental Problems

Even though people are learning more and more about AI, one of the lesser talked about but possibly the most detrimental issue happening starting now is it's carbon footprint. The majority of the impact comes from the AI hardware and the electricity consumed by training data centres. While currently, it contributes to less than 1% of global carbon emissions, but it is a fast-increasing sector especially with the high volume of demand that can prevent its shift to renewable energy. The lack of transparency and conversation around it makes this even more harmful.

Economic Problems

In terms of economics, AI has led to many efficient changes and taken over or is in the process of taking over various labour-intensive industries. However, the positives end at the short-term financial efficacy. With the introduction of AI comes the destruction of entry-level jobs increasing unemployment and the pressure on job markets amid the anticipation of a recession. This also worsens the situation for people seeking jobs to possess the required skills and calls for a complete skill redevelopment, which while possible in the long-term is a problem for now.

The use of AI in things like hiring processes specifically was studied and showed unbelievable biases. This takes us back to how AI does not "create" anything but just synthesises and forms its opinions based on information found online, so when this is applied to the hiring process specifically, it was found that there were a staggering amount of biases in terms of gender and race, increasing discrimination, increasing social inequalities and unemployment and therefore impacting economic growth negatively.

The Impact on Education

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Education is highly impacted by the introduction of AI. It was positively impacted in the way these chatbots can provide adaptable tutors that are more accessibly, and also the reduction in unnecessary laborious tasks. Though, in 2022 itself, educators and institutes found major cases of excessive AI use, issues with academic ethics and cheating.

Since then, AI detector models have also improved but it continues to be an issue. As a student myself, I see how the idea of using AI may seem appealing in the short-term when you have a deadline over your head, but the lack of consideration to future impacts can be pernicious.

With the dependancy on AI increasing, we will definitely lose jobs but also skills, research being the primary one at risk however the loss of critical thinking would have the effects far-reaching the academic environments. As our dependancy increases, we will lose our individuality, our voice, our opinions, there would be impacts such as developmental problems in the upcoming generations, promotion of false of unverified information and aiding the death of the humanities that has larger political impacts.

Political Problems

Recently, these has been a surge of political issues and this correlates with the rise of AI, while not necessarily as causation. The recent rise of the right wing has paired nicely with the over dependance on AI.

As we see humanities departments in universities globally lose funding, the study itself become socially stigmatised as "impractical" for future economic purposes, it is inevitable to notice the relevance. Humanities encompasses subjects that study humans, psychologically, developmentally, socially, politically, these are subjects that teach and encourage its students to think, to question, to demand answers to socially and politically accepted and enforced ideas.

Additionally, the over-dependancy makes us more susceptible to government control and censorship. If people in power control AI, in an overdependent society, they control our exposure, our information, our thinking, our opinions, and our ability to question their actions—right or wrong. In the upcoming times, information (and therefore education and thinking) are going to become the most powerful and manipulated weapons.

So What?

A lot of information about AI is intentionally not highlighted as much as it should be publicly to encourage uninformed use that can lead to a detrimental dependance. So, I am not asking you to stop using AI, but if you are, I hope it is an informed and evaluated CHOICE!

Maybe don't use it for things that you can find out with just one google search or one visit to your teacher, or put more effort into crafting prompts to ensure the use of less prompts, use it for guidance on the questions to ask but think to ask and answer the questions for yourself, use it to your advantage not as your replacement.