“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.” – Stephen Hawking
By Stephen Hawking
As the world becomes more connected and linked among people, a global culture and a network society is created. Network society is the term describing the social, political, economic, and cultural shifts brought about by the proliferation of digital, networked information and communications technology.
Manuel Castells’s theory of network society (1996), introduced in his trilogy book “The Information Age,” posits that information management is influenced by micro-electronic communication technology. This shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age resulted in a less clear boundary between society and the network, leading to a perpetual idea of time, flow of space, and power dynamics.
Here, Castells believes that the network will result in the global organization of the network society as per the network model. The ability of the nation-state to organize political, economic, and social power in the network society has largely declined and further created a less centralized society. But, it’s not entirely accurate as in reality it became more controlled, and surveillance, leading to reduced human autonomy & privacy due to this emerging technology.
With the emergence of network society in today’s globe, this modern idea has made it possible to interchange enormous volumes of information and communication technology. As a result, people in the many spaces of places were more and more isolated from one another, and networks related to a space of flows that connected them globally were created, while fragmenting subordinate roles were also affected. These technologies have created new challenges like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Deep fake, security and more.
AI refers to the intelligence of machines that allow users to engage with software in a way that is similar to that of a person and give decisions to help with certain activities including problem-solving, perception, and comprehending and translating across different languages. It is designed to make human actions more automatic, efficient, and effective. However, apart from understanding AI’s capabilities it also led to greater concerns.
The world’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit held earlier this November in the UK, attended by 28 major countries, aimed to establish a shared understanding of the opportunities and risks posed by frontier AI. The summit, which included the US, China, and India, emphasized the need for global action to tackle the potential risks of AI. Frontier AI, defined with high levels of capability that have the potential to pose a serious threat to national security and public safety. For example, designing chemical weapons, exploiting vulnerabilities in safety-critical software systems and more.
The statement mentioned issues beyond frontier AI, such as prejudice and privacy, as well as the “potential for serious, even catastrophic, harm, either deliberate or unintentional, stemming from the most significant capabilities of these AI models.”
AI systems, relying on data, raise privacy and surveillance concerns, potentially leading to government abuses and job displacement. They are vulnerable to cyberattacks, identity theft, and lack creativity. Ethical considerations include responsibility for accidents in self-driving cars, criminal justice, and medical diagnosis. Investing in the agreement is crucial for future risks associated with Frontier AI.
Similar risks have been seen all around the world including India. The popularization of AI leads to many controversial things like deepfakes to create misinformation about an individual through editing and manipulating pictures or videos that have been used maliciously or to disseminate false information to misrepresent someone else.
South Indian actress Rashmika Mandanna morphed a video that went viral on social media. The original video was a British-Indian woman named Zara Patel, a social media influencer. They are majorly used for sexualizing women, and appeasing the masculine gaze which maliciously damages their public perception.
These tools have revolutionized the creation of realistic deepfakes of women, particularly celebrities or public figures. Not only that, as AI is accessible to the general public there have been cases where young boys have used teen girls’ social media photos to create these images, often performing sexually explicit acts on social networks.
Zara Patel posted on social media, “I worry about the future of women and girls who now have to fear even more about putting themselves on social media.”
This can be indicative of an attempt to sexualize women, manipulate information, troll and even cyberbully them. Deepfake and manipulation of images create a lack of trust and generate a fearful environment for women.
It is growing more concerned with artificial intelligence and deepfakes. Technology and the internet’s growth can affect us in both positive and negative ways. To stop these cases, it becomes crucial to regulate specific behaviors and laws. Today’s digital environment makes it imperative to safeguard against deepfakes and other AI-associated risks. In order to be an informed society, we must support laws, validate sources, and advance media literacy.