Generative AI: Minor Value and Major Harms
May 16, 2024
Flawed though it is, generative AI has its uses. In fact, according to software engineer and Citation Needed author Molly White, AI tools for programming and writing are about as helpful as an intern. Unlike the average intern, however, AI supplies help with a side of serious ethical and environmental concerns. White discusses the tradeoffs in her post, “AI Isn’t Useless. But Is It Worth It?”
At first White was hesitant to dip her toes in the problematic AI waters. However, she also did not want to dismiss their value out of hand. She writes:
“But as the hype around AI has grown, and with it my desire to understand the space in more depth, I wanted to really understand what these tools can do, to develop as strong an understanding as possible of their potential capabilities as well as their limitations and tradeoffs, to ensure my opinions are well-formed. I, like many others who have experimented with or adopted these products, have found that these tools actually can be pretty useful for some tasks. Though AI companies are prone to making overblown promises that the tools will shortly be able to replace your content writing team or generate feature-length films or develop a video game from scratch, the reality is far more mundane: they are handy in the same way that it might occasionally be useful to delegate some tasks to an inexperienced and sometimes sloppy intern. Still, I do think acknowledging the usefulness is important, while also holding companies to account for their false or impossible promises, abusive labor practices, and myriad other issues. When critics dismiss AI outright, I think in many cases this weakens the criticism, as readers who have used and benefited from AI tools think ‘wait, that’s not been my experience at all’.”
That is why White put in the time and effort to run several AI tools through their paces. She describes the results in the article, so navigate there for those details. Some features she found useful. Others required so much review and correction they were more trouble than they were worth. Overall, though, she finds the claims of AI bros to be overblown and the consequences to far outweigh the benefits. So maybe hand that next mundane task to the nearest intern who, though a flawed human, comes with far less baggage than ChatGPT and friends.
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2024
Comments
Got something to say?
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
