What if AI Could Bring Out the Best in Us, Not the Worst?
We shouldn’t just focus on what we want AI to be (or not), but who we want to be thanks to it
AI is often called a mirror of humanity.
And not in a good sense, exactly.
After all, the large language models (LLMs) that underpin the most popular AI tools today — like Chat GPT — are trained on vast amounts of unfiltered, flawed, and sometimes even unethical data scraped from all around the Internet. And since the Internet itself, particularly social media, is full of bias, AI is bound to absorb, perpetuate, and even amplify it.
A growing number of studies show that generative AIs, such as Midjourney and DALL·E, often perpetuate regressive gender, racial and homophobic stereotypes. Tools and platforms powered by AI are also used to create nonconsensual sexually explicit content — known as deepfakes — abuse, harass, and intimidate women and girls and spread misinformation, among a few other things.
And as more and more people use AI in their work, studies, and homes and spend time in online environments where AI plays an increasingly important role, it’s apparent that we cannot underestimate the impact its embedded bias can have on us.
