Sleepwalking to ruin?

Talk of AI has been rampant for a while on the internet and it seems to have trickled down to the point where it's becoming a regular discussion at work.

I have what I feel is a healthy scepticism about AI, particularly AI-generated imagery. We've seen lots of examples in just the last week which have been fooling people, such as the Pope wearing a white puffer jacket or Margaret Thatcher DJing on some decks.

"What are you worried about, Sam, it's all just a bit of fun!", some of you might be thinking. And true, it is fun... until it's not.

In a few short months, these generated images have gone from being quite easy to detect because of the AI's inability to generate hands properly to being pretty damn accurate.

It's come at one of the absolute worst times. We live in a world where people are readily prepared to yell "Fake news!" to something that they disagree with or doesn't align with their opinion. AI imagery is only going to make that worse.

As time goes on and these systems continue to get better and more refined, it's going to be harder and harder to distinguish fake from real.

Fast forward a few years (or maybe a decade or two) and the continued development of AR products like Oculus. I don't think it's too big a leap to say products similar to Google Glass will once again be on the market, only this time embedded in wearables like the glasses you own or contact lenses and the general public will lap it up.

Combine AR with the ability to manipulate video in real-time with AI and pretty soon, we're not even going to be able to trust what our own eyes see.

Maybe I'll be wrong. I hope I am! I really want to be proven wrong on this and that AI will only be used for the good of humanity but let's face it, we're shit at doing stuff for the good of humanity.