The Impact of AI on Creativity and Autocratic Governments
This week, Meta’s AI-generated stickers and Microsoft Bing’s image generation feature have caused controversy as users used them to create inappropriate and offensive images. In San Francisco, another incident involving a Cruise robotaxi injuring a pedestrian highlights the continued struggle for self-driving car companies to improve road safety. Meanwhile, a report by Freedom House reveals that AI is being weaponized by autocratic governments to suppress dissent and spread disinformation online.
A Federal Trade Commission hearing, titled “Creative Economy and Generative AI,” addressed the concerns of creators who are seeing their work replaced by AI. One author even filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for using their material to train its algorithms. The rise of AI in the creative industry raises questions about the future of human creativity and the ethics in using copyrighted material.
Allie Funk, Research Director for Technology and Democracy at Freedom House, discussed how AI is aiding government censorship and disinformation campaigns. She highlighted that the Chinese government is using AI to regulate chatbots and control information. Disinformation campaigns deployed by governments have become more sophisticated, and AI-powered tools make it easier for anyone to participate in spreading false information. Funk suggests implementing transparency measures for AI products, giving platform data to independent researchers, and improving privacy regulations and surveillance rules as possible solutions to mitigate the harms caused by AI.
