AI, For Better or Worse

Correct answer, Siri

I have used several field guidebooks over the years to assist me in identifying birds, flowers, trees, fungi, butterflies and moths. Lately, Siri has been my guide more often than not. The handy "i" icon quickly retrieves the bird's or flower's name and adds a link to an article that provides everything I want to know about my photo. But Siri is not infallible! Siri could not tell the difference between a juvenile swamp sparrow and a song sparrow in a recent picture I took. I found a group of small red mushrooms and Siri thought they were poppies. "She" also sometimes struggles to identify family members with similar facial features. 

Sorry, Siri, you are wrong

Image recognition is the ability of software to identify details in digital depictions. Computers use machine vision technologies with a camera and artificial intelligence software to recognize images. This recognition is almost instantaneous but I have learned that Siri's (or Android's) knowledge needs to be verified. My print guidebooks are still useful. 

Artificial intelligence has become helpful and very troubling in recent years. I use a free version of Grammarly when I write in order to catch silly typos and grammatical errors. Grammarly now has the ability to generate text and re-write entire sentences for clarity. It can be very intrusive when I compose a letter or a blog post.  Universities and colleges offer premium Grammarly programs to students, a move that seriously compromises the ability of a student to learn to write succinctly on their own. Grammarly is just one of several AI writing generators. Generative AI scrapes the internet for images and generates novel artistic images that people can pass off as their own. Copyrighted content can be altered as well as plagiarized with ease. The same technology that assists me in identifying something in my digital photo is also used unethically in ways that compromise the livelihoods of artists, writers, teachers, designers and more. It is not surprising that this is one of the concerns of striking Hollywood writers. 

False information from AI-generated writing and photo manipulation deceives unwary observers. Social media has the ability to spread misinformation almost as quickly as AI produces it. I still have a couple of social media accounts as they are very useful for keeping in touch with family and a few friends. But I have decided to renew subscriptions to responsible newspapers and magazines after relying on the internet for news and commentary for a number of years. I want to support ethical journalism and the people who make a living as original writers, photographers and artists. 

It is important for educators, parents and the concerned public to ensure that children and youth are discerning about the media they consume. The borders of truth and fantasy are increasingly difficult to identify online. Communicating information accurately, developing original, well-informed opinions and becoming skilled in writing, reading, and other creative endeavours must be encouraged.