AI Demands We Further Define Authenticity
It's become nearly impossible to distinguish AI from Human
Hiya!
We humans love a good challenge. We can’t help but push the limits, and sometimes, that leads to stumbling upon knowledge that transforms our entire way of life and perspective of the world. Various technological advancements show this time and time again. There may be some bumps along the way, but usually, such advancements benefit us more than harm us.
However, we might have reached a precipice of progress with artificial intelligence (AI). While AI has infiltrated nearly every industry, and in may cases become invaluable, some forms, such as generative AI, challenge our sense of what it means to be Human. Despite our better judgment, we’re having an increasingly harder time distinguishing between authentic human-created texts, videos, and audio from ones created by AI.
The Rapid Creep of Technology
In a reductive sense, artificial intelligence is merely the latest technological advancement to transform the world as we know it. But it is not the first technology to dramatically impact our way of life.
Generationally speaking, Baby Boomers were the first to grow up with television. VCRs and cable shows like MTV came about when Gen X came of age. Millennials (like me) were the first “digital natives” with home computers and surrounded by other devices like Nintendo in our formative years. Gen Z was the first to grow up with social media and smartphones.
All of these advancements and more have substantially changed global society. But while we’ve witnessed our world transform many times over, the speed at which these changes happen is only increasing. Our way of life today is almost unrecognizable from even just 1987 when I was born.
As a small example, I vividly remember riding in the car as a young child, maybe around five or six years old, and telling my mom I hoped one day there could be a magic book that contained all the books in the world. A little over a decade later, the Kindle came out.
Television, computers, and other devices are used for entertainment and to enhance our abilities, like using calculators to help us solve complex equations. But these machines and devices opened the door to artificial intelligence, unlike anything we’ve invented before.
AI is helpful but challenges us in new ways and is advancing rapidly. Some say it’s advancing too quickly, especially considering that humans are now struggling to distinguish between artificially generated content, media, and even phone calls from authentic human-made ones.
Trickery
I don’t need to tell you we’re already dealing with immense amounts of dis and misinformation about politics, like the robocalls that sound like President Biden telling people not to vote, which in and of itself is an example of how dangerous it can be.
For instance, how can voters tell whether a video of a political candidate saying or doing something offensive is authentic or AI-generated? But the trickery doesn’t end with confusing voters.
AI-generated media, content, and images have flooded the internet. In April of 2023, a new song by Drake and The Weeknd went viral on TikTok and YouTube — except the track was fake. Drake and The Weeknd didn’t create it. AI did. In the same month, the winning photograph in the international photography competition wasn’t a real photograph. Neither was the image of Pope Francis rockin’ a Balenciaga jacket the month before, in March 2023. And, of course, it’s worth mentioning that the nude images circulating of Taylor Swift are also fake.
These examples were created using generative AI, which uses programs like ChatGPT, Bard, Midjourney, and more to generate humanlike images, audio, and text on demand.
Our inability to distinguish what’s made by humans and what’s created by AI is critical. Not only can it mess with our sense of what’s real and fiction, but will people pay artists for their work if AI can create visually stunning imagery for less money? Will people still follow authors or read writers like me if AI generates more content in similar styles faster than we can? Do people really care whether something is made by another human or machine?
What Makes Something Authentic?
When discussing authenticity related to AI, the simplest distinction is whether a human or artificial intelligence created something. But determining whether something is “authentic” is trickier than it seems. In fact, we humans have debated about what makes something feel authentic for centuries.
When buying an expensive purchase like a house, how can you be sure the real estate agent is authentic in their praise of a property or whether they’re putting on a show to close the deal and get their commission? Beyond consumerism, what about you? How do you know what your authentic self is like?
Authenticity extends even further than motivations and internal philosophy, though. Neuroscientists have found that it affects our brains. Research shows that the brain’s reward center lights up when we believe a piece of artwork is authentic in ways viewing art we’ve been told is a forgery doesn’t.
In a broader scope, you could say authenticity is the glue that holds our global society together by reinforcing trust. If we don’t feel a person is being authentic, then we’re less likely to trust what they say. We can already see the effects of this in the mis and disinformation related to politics that we discussed earlier.
Before AI, determining the authenticity of something or someone was more of a feeling. However, with AI’s rapid growth, it’s time we created some parameters to define what makes something authentic in tangible ways.
Defining Authenticity
Experts have made some headway in defining what makes something authentic. Psychologist Greoge Newman has spent years narrowing down the answers in a series of studies and discovered three main dimensions or parameters of authenticity.
First is historical authenticity, whether an item is actually from the place, person, or time someone claims it to be. For instance, seeing a piece of pottery from 26,000 years ago has more historical authenticity than a replica for sale on Amazon, and a genuine Picasso painting is more impressive than a forgery.
The second is categorical authenticity, which is best explained with an example. Let’s say a new Italian restaurant opens near you promoting authentic handmade Italian pasta dishes. The meals are not made or imported from Italy, and the chef may not have any Italian ancestry in their genes, but the ingredients, cooking techniques, meal presentation, and flavors might align well with what you would expect at a restaurant in Italy.
Great. Now I’m hungry for Italian food. Anyway, let’s move on to the third dimension Newman identified: authenticity comes from our beliefs and values. For example, when people we believe in and trust say one thing but do another,
Reading these categories probably feels familiar, even obvious, yet we rarely think about these things. But we’ll need to as generative AI continues to evolve.
Perspective Shift
The good news is that we’ve already had some practice dealing with transformative technology. The internet flipped our social world upside down in countless ways in less than a decade, but we’ve found ways to make it safer. It’s not perfect, but we’re getting there, and I think AI will be similar.
We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, so we’re going to have to do our best to give AI the attention it deserves rather than let it take on a life of its own (I don’t mean that literally, but I suppose you never know…) So, we need to ensure people are educated about AI and that we have open conversations about its progression and how it will change our lives and expectations.
In the future, will students use programs like ChatGPT to compose their assigned papers rather than writing each sentence themselves the way calculators eliminated the need for students to perform complex equations in their heads or work them through on paper? Is one more or less authentic than the other?
We’ll have to figure these things out. Given how quickly AI is evolving, it seems we’ll need to have these discussions sooner rather than later.
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Nice take on a complicated subject. Thanks, Katrina.