The Problem with AI
AI-generated media has only become more popular as a topic of debate in recent years, particularly as open-source LLMs hurtle towards widespread accessibility. On the one hand, there’s no denying the sheer potential of AI’s ability to generate content. Human productivity is likely to soar to unforeseen heights as we become more proficient with technology, ushering in a revolutionary change to the ways we create and consume all forms of content, from written articles and documents to videos and other multimedia forms.
On the other hand, however, there are serious ethical questions that have arisen that simply cannot be ignored. As game-changing as AI promises to be, there are significant, well-founded concerns about authenticity, privacy, and misuse of the technology, which we’re going to have to answer as a species to prevent things from getting out of control. AI-produced media in its current iteration, for example, is still in its infancy, and mistakes abound.
From harmless, “not quite right” errors to serious instances of misinformation, the potential for incorrect data to be created en masse and widely disseminated is worrying, to say the least. There are also plenty of instances where AI-created content could be used for more nefarious purposes. Whether they’re AI-generated pieces of text that mimic human writing or “deepfake” videos that are getting harder and harder to distinguish from real life, AI’s game-changing technological capabilities could lead to a situation humanity has never had to deal with before being completely unable to tell what’s true and what’s false.
Despite how drastic it sounds, it might not be going too far to say that AI could be a Pandora’s Box, with the potential to destabilize our society on a scale we’ve never seen before. But humankind has always proven exceptional at answering problems with solutions, and at Synthesys, we’re firm believers that there’s no reason we can’t come up with a rational, comprehensive, and future-proof ethical framework to prevent AI from doing more harm than good.
The Synthesys Studio Vision: Harnessing AI Responsibly
As a company designed to work within this complex, ever-changing landscape, we here at Synthesys Studio recognize the sheer amount of responsibility we’ve undertaken. It’s simply not good enough to bury our heads in the sand and pretend there aren’t major ethical concerns at play — that’s just not who we are. Our goal is to contribute to a future that involves responsible AI use, controlled and understood in a way that protects the most vulnerable members of our society and prevents matters from spiraling out of control.
Our vision of the future is one where AI is used to enhance people’s lives, businesses, and goals, not damage them. Privacy has always been a significant worry when it comes to artificial intelligence.
After all, if everybody’s data becomes in some way accessible to an ever-growing, ever-expanding database for training new models, there’s no telling just where that road might lead. We believe that strict screening processes, enhanced security measures, and a broader, widespread sense of responsibility could provide a solution for pointing the way towards a safer, more trustworthy future for everybody.
AI can’t be a free-for-all, with everybody using it however they see fit without taking into account the lives of the people affected. The tools we build and the problems we solve for our customers have never and will never come at the expense of personal privacy or business integrity. The only future for AI, in our eyes, is a responsible, ethical one that allows everybody to participate in the revolutionary power of this technology without fundamental elements of their own existence being compromised in the process.
We’d like to stand as a marker for responsible AI use, which is why we’ve always been loud and proud about our take on AI ethics, and why we’ll continue to do so every single day.