12 risks of artificial intelligence.Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) Dangerous?.On Monday, May 22, 2023, a verified Twitter account called “Bloomberg Feed” shared a tweet claiming there had been an explosion at the Pentagon, accompanied by an image. In case you’re wondering what this has to do with artificial intelligence (AI), the image was generated by AI and the tweet quickly went viral and caused the stock market to crash briefly. It could have been much worse, a stark reminder of the dangers of artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence Dangers
We need to worry about more than just fake news. There are many immediate or potential risks associated with AI, from those related to privacy and security to issues of bias and copyright. We will delve into some of these AI dangers, see what is being done to mitigate them now and in the future, and ask if the risks of AI outweigh the benefits.
Fake News
When deepfakes first appeared, there were fears that they could be used with malicious intent. The same can be said for the new wave of AI image generators like DALL-E 2, Midjourney or DreamStudio. On March 28, 2023, AI-generated fake images of Pope Francis wearing a Balenciaga white down jacket enjoying several adventures, including skateboarding and playing poker, went viral. Unless you carefully studied the images, it was difficult to distinguish these images from the real thing. 
While the dad example was no doubt a little funny, the image (and accompanying tweet) about the Pentagon was anything but. Fake AI-generated images can damage reputations, end marriages or careers, cause political unrest, and even start wars if owned by the wrong people – in short, these AI-generated images can be extremely dangerous if used incorrectly.With AI image generators now available to everyone for free, and Photoshop adding an AI image generator to its popular software, the ability to manipulate images and create fake news is greater than ever.
Privacy, security and hacking
Privacy and security are also a big concern when it comes to AI risks, as ChatGPT OpenAI has already been banned in a number of countries. Italy has banned the model on privacy grounds, believing it does not comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), while the governments of China, North Korea and Russia have banned it over fear that it will spread misinformation.So why are we so worried about privacy when it comes to AI? AI applications and systems collect large amounts of data in order to learn and make predictions. But how is this data stored and processed? There is a real risk of data leakage, hacking and information falling into the wrong hands. 
It’s not just our personal data that’s at risk. Hacking AI is a real risk – this has never happened before, but if attackers can hack into AI systems, it could have serious consequences. For example, hackers can drive unmanned vehicles, hack into AI security systems to gain access to highly secure locations, and even hack into AI-security weapon systems.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) experts are aware of these risks and are already working on DARPA’s Guaranteed AI Resilience to Deception (GARD) project, solving the problem from the ground up. The goal of the project is to ensure that hack and hack resistance is built into algorithms and AI.Copyright InfringementAnother danger of AI is copyright infringement. It may not seem as serious as some of the other dangers we have mentioned, but the development of AI models like GPT-4 puts everyone at increased risk of breach. 
Every time you ask ChatGPT to create something for you—whether it’s a travel blog post or a new name for your business—you’re giving it information that it then uses to answer future requests. The information it returns to you may violate someone’s copyright, which is why it’s so important to use a plagiarism detector and edit any AI-generated content before publishing it.
Society and data bias
AI is not human, so it can’t be biased, right? Wrong. People and data are used to train AI models and chatbots, meaning that biased data or personalities will lead to biased AI. There are two types of bias in AI: social bias and data bias. 
What happens when there are many prejudices in everyday society, when these prejudices become part of AI? The programmers responsible for training the model may have preconceived expectations, which are then fed into the AI systems.Or the data used to train and develop AI may be incorrect, biased, or collected in bad faith. This leads to data bias that can be just as dangerous as societal bias. For example, if a facial recognition system is trained using mostly white people’s faces, it may have difficulty recognizing members of minority groups, perpetuating oppression.
Robots are taking over our jobs
The development of chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Bard has created an entirely new AI problem: the risk of robots taking over our jobs. We already see AI replacing writers in the tech industry, software developers fearing they will lose their jobs due to bots, and companies using ChatGPT to create blog and social media content rather than hire human writers. 
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2020 report, AI is expected to replace 85 million jobs globally by 2025. Even if AI does not replace writers, many are already using it as a tool. Those in jobs that risk being replaced by AI may need to adapt to survive – for example, writers can become AI hint engineers, allowing them to work with tools like ChatGPT to create content rather than being replaced by these models .
Future Potential AI Risks
These are all immediate or impending risks, but what about the less likely, but still possible, dangers of AI that we may see in the future? These include things like AI programmed to harm people, such as autonomous weapons trained to kill in times of war. 
In addition, there is a risk that the AI may become completely focused on its programmed goal, developing destructive behavior, trying to achieve this goal at any cost, even when people try to interfere with it.Skynet has taught us what happens when an AI becomes sentient. However, while Google engineer Blake LeMoine may have been trying to convince everyone that LaMDA, Google’s AI-powered chatbot generator, was reasonable back in June 2022, thankfully, to date, there is no evidence that this is true.
The Challenges of AI regulation
On Monday, May 15, 2002, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attended the first congressional hearing on artificial intelligence, warning: “If this technology goes wrong, it could go very wrong.” CO OpenAI has made it clear that it is in favor of regulation and has presented many of its own ideas to the hearing. The problem is that AI is advancing at such a rate that it’s hard to know where to start regulating.Congress wants to avoid the same mistakes that were made at the start of the social media era, and a panel of experts, along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, is already working on rules that would require companies to disclose what data sources they used to train models and who trained them. . However, it may be some time before it becomes clear exactly how AI will be regulated, and there will undoubtedly be a backlash from AI companies.
The threat of artificial general intelligence
There is also the risk of creating artificial general intelligence (AI) that could perform any task that a human (or animal) can perform. Often mentioned in science fiction films, we are probably still a few decades away from such a creation, but if and when we create AGI, it could pose a threat to humanity.Many public figures already support the notion that AI is an existential threat to humans, including Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and even former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who stated: “AI can pose existential risks and governments need to know how to make sure the technology is not being used by evil people.”So, is artificial intelligence dangerous and do its risks outweigh the benefits? A decision has yet to be made, but we are already seeing evidence of some of the risks around us right now. Other dangers are unlikely to materialize anytime soon, if at all. However, one thing is clear: the danger of AI cannot be underestimated. It is imperative that we ensure that AI is properly regulated from the outset to minimize and hopefully mitigate any future risks.
Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) Dangerous?
Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) Dangerous?