From Cybernews
From nonexistent attractions to fake book lists: should we stop AI from generating content for us?
By Konstancija Gasaitytė
At its core, AI was created to help us with repetitive, dull, and annoying tasks. However, somehow, it has started targeting mediums that people enjoy creating most: music, videos, writing, and all other types of content.
To be more specific, not that long ago, some newspaper readers were surprised after reading a “books-to-read” list that doesn’t actually exist. The book list was generated by AI and ended up in multiple physical publications without an editor or proofreader batting an eyelid...
Have you ever found it difficult to distinguish between the real and online worlds? For many, it’s becoming harder to draw a distinct line between the two.
The current situation with AI doesn’t help, as many experts agree that it is already impacting physical content, such as books, TV shows, music, and more.
“This is not inherently bad when it comes to fiction, but for things like travel books and non-fiction books, the hallucinatory tendencies of today’s LLMs is concerning with respect to the need to provide reliable information to consumers,” noted Hany Farid, co-founder of cybersecurity company GetReal.
For one elderly couple, this concern became a reality when they decided to take a 186-mile trip to see a tourist attraction that wasn’t real but rather a figment of AI’s imagination...
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.
