One of the most remarkable gifts by the mankind to itself is the Artificial Intelligence. Once a new word, Artificial Intelligence or AI, is the most commonly known term to every household now.
AI is also a smart assistant for any work, starting from making a shopping list to reviewing products online, many daily use applications and websites are using their AI versions for helping the users. AI is also a smart tool for academic research and teaching when used in a responsible manner. Some social media platforms are also providing AI tools for writing and creating post.
Artificial Intelligence is now spreading its wings in almost all the fields, be it healthcare, agriculture, education even the Government undertakings are using AI to make the services user friendly. India is at the pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence, the Government of India, taking a step forward has also come up with the India AI mission to promote the use of artificial intelligence. Search engines are using this technology to make their services better. There are AI chatbots which are providing
assistance in academic writings, to researching on a particular topic, writing codes, essays, finding questions and answers in a particular domain and so on.
Artificial Intelligence is like a double — edged sword, while it is capable of being one of the greatest friends, at the same time, it is also capable of being the finest enemy. Though at one hand, it is being used for research or other productive measures but at the same time, it is also being used as a medium of committing scams, frauds including the cybercrime. AI has become one of the tools for committing cybercrime, the use of deepfakes, AI generated images, video, voice notes are helping the fraudsters to commit these crimes. As the AI has progressed, the methods of committing cybercrime have become more sophisticated.
While a few months, it was slightly easy to demarcate between the AI generated content and the organic content, but with the advancement of AI technology, it is becoming difficult to distinguish between the two. Further, it is expected with more progression in the technology, the things are going to get more complicated.
CHALLENGES AND RISK
l Deepfakes: One of the most recent and a cause of concern is the increasing use of deepfakes. This is being used to spread misinformation, pornographic content, defame individuals, manipulate elections, opinion and to commit crimes. Recently social media influencers, actors, politicians have become the target of deepfakes where their deepfake or AI generated video, voice notes, pictures were circulated online to marginalise their image and spread misinformation.
Scams: Use of AI is increasing in committing cybercrimes. AI generated voice, pictures which generate a similar note as what is being portrayed, often leads to the victim believe, sender is an authentic person. Recent scams including digital arrest, courier frauds, share market scams are committed using AI as a mode.
Ethical and Legal Concerns: Some AI tools work by gathering existing online content and forming opinions based on it. This can create problems, as the information or viewpoints they provide may be one — sided and fail to show other perspectives or the full truth.
It is easy to manipulate an opinion for or against a person or a product and AI seems to be a useful tool for this. For academic writing, AI helps in changing the terminology and escaping the plagiarism, but this is ethically wrong.
l Privacy concerns: The present day generation is more connected on social media than their actual neighborhood. Consequently, all the personal data and pictures are either stored online on drives or uploaded on social media.
To make the pictures more creative, AI tools are being used, which may store the data. There have been instances, where the AI chatbots have even created identity cards raising a question on the security of the
data which is being fed/uploaded on social media and AI tools.
Job Displacements: Artificial Intelligence is become more creative day by day and is entering the domain of generating literary and artistic work. AI is doing things which were earlier considered to be completed only by human minds.
It is helping in making codes, editing pictures, videos, creatives, voice modulation and so on. It is increasingly become a threat as the recruiters are become more interested in hiring individuals who have a hand on this technology. Universities are promoting courses which are focused on artificial intelligence.
l Dependency: More use of Artificial Intelligence is creating a dependency on itself. We are relying more on the AI for any research than undergoing organic research.
Though it works like a chatbot, it may create a situation on the minds of the users to use it in a way to depict it as a human conversation. This can blur the difference between human and a machine conversation.
CAUTION AND ACTION
It would not be wrong to say Artificial Intelligence is like a tool or an assistant at your hand. It will function the way you want it to function, AI may be used for creation and at the same time it can be used a tool for destruction. The need of the hour is to have a well defined and robust law, enforcement mechanism to regulate the unbridled use of Artificial Intelligence. It is correct to say that a post on social media travels the world with much more speed than a letter posted. Sharing content on social media platforms is very easy and the reach is more than any other platform. The problem with this is, the speed of spreading misinformation and hate content is also becoming uncontrollable. India has recently come up with an amendment in the IT rules, the comments for which are being asked from the public. It is a welcome step to reduce the wrongs which are being committed by the use of AI.
It is also pertinent and important to mention, if any person is found himself to be trapped by any cybercrime, he should, inform the nearest cyber police station and on cyber helpline 1930 as early as possible. Police is for the assistance of society and as citizens we should be their helping hands rather than a critic. As a responsible person, we should inform the children, and old persons, not to fall trap to the cyber offenders and follow
certain simple protocols like:
Artificial Intelligence has the capability of being a smart friend and its use should also be regulated in a way that it remains a friend only rather than becoming an enemy. AI is very powerful but at the same time being vigilant while using this technology is very essential. While accepting any opinion, image or video shared with us, we must try to identity the quality, source to understand the authenticity of it. Safe and healthy browsing should be the key for the use of Artificial Intelligence.
Author is a Post Graduate in Law (LL M) from NLSIU, Bangalore and pursuing Phd in Cyber Law from RGNUL, Patiala