What current AI-related issues, developments, or decisions do you find especially relevant to contemporary society? Craft a short post to give your classmates an overview of the issues involved and why it’s so important.
AI is used in the hiring process these days, and it frequently scans our resumes. Many of these models are trained on biased data, which reinforces or even worsens existing inequalities. For instance, hiring algorithms may favor male applicants if trained on historical data that favored male applicants. Similarly, algorithms may favor white applicants over people of color.
Given how AI is becoming ingrained in daily life, this topic is particularly important today. In the future, only AI might be used in the hiring process. These systems have the potential to covertly support widespread systemic discrimination if we don’t confront bias today. It draws attention to how urgently inclusive data practices, accountability, and openness are needed in the development of AI.
I think one of the more relevant and scary parts for generative Ai is the advent of deepfakes, which are realistic but fake images, videos or voices created through large language models. It has a potential positive use-case for creativity, accessibilty etc., however also simultaneously raising serious concerns about misinformation, identity theft etc.
They have been a tool in spreading political misinformation and also for fake celebrity endorsements. The results of this could potentially be catastrophic as generative AI tools gets readily available for the masses; making it difficult for us to distinguish from what is real and fake. This creates a vacuum of trust and individual safety, threatening our the fabric of our society as we know it.
As AI gets more integrated in our lives, I am reflecting on how it could be used as tool for optimism and positivity. I want to use AI as a tool for enhancement not replacement, something enhances our creativity and productivity without the undermining the very essence of human connection. For instance, I mostly use AI to brainstorm ideas and synthesize content that is otherwise complex or too long to decipher. It also helps me organize my thoughts, particularly when I am juggling multiple projects all at once. But I also firmly believe that transparency is key when it comes to using AI for project or paper. A line must be drawn for domains that require voicing your own opinions for enhancing human curiosity and endeavor. The processes needs to be changed and we need to redefine what it means to pursue knowledge in a world with Large Language Models.
AI in education is more relevant than ever, especially now that it’s officially being integrated into K–12 schools across the U.S. under new federal policy. On one hand, this could make learning more engaging and efficient by helping students grasp complex topics and allowing teachers to save time on repetitive tasks. But at the same time, it raises big questions: If students are using AI to do their homework and teachers are using it to grade, is anyone really learning or teaching? It feels like AI might be doing all the work.
In addition to education, another field that also struggles with the ethics of AI issue is the creative field. For people who write, make music, and create art, it honestly feels unfair that AI can generate in seconds what takes real people years of practice and emotion to master. It also brings up serious ethical concerns—like whose work is AI trying to mimic, and how do we prevent AI from reinforcing harmful biases?
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use AI; I do use AI myself for brainstorming, editing, and automating small tasks. It saves time and helps me focus on the more meaningful parts of my work. But I try to use it responsibly, making sure I’m still the one creating, not just copying. As AI becomes a bigger part of how we learn and create, we need to stay thoughtful and set clear boundaries, so it enhances our efforts without replacing them.
a: In modern society, we have to admit that AI has completely entered our world. The appearance of AI has brought many conveniences to people, such as being able to do some basic data crawling work. The disadvantage is that it is easy to form long-term or complete dependence, and more seriously, it will replace humans (future concerns… maybe 50yrs later). In contemporary society, artificial intelligence (AI) has penetrated into all walks of life, from medical care, education, finance, transportation, and is everywhere. The most concerned issues at present include: job replacement, data privacy, bias and discrimination, and AI’s ethical decision-making ability.
First, the popularity of AI is changing the traditional employment structure, especially the automation of repetitive labor may lead to the disappearance of a large number of jobs, causing unemployment problems, and further exacerbating social inequality. For example, self-service cashiers, autonomous driving and chatbots are gradually replacing human operators. For example, the hot driverless cars in the past two years have gradually replaced Uber and other travel service industries (although they have not completely replaced them). External Source: Luobo Kuaipao unmanned driving taxi service in Wuhan China https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1015767)
In addition, algorithmic bias has caused injustice in reality, such as gender or racial discrimination in AI recruitment, loan approval and other fields. The HR department may upload the establishment of existing employees to AI training to build a model, so that AI can choose according to its own model during the resume screening process. For example, if the company has more males, it may not consider female applicants, or if all existing employees graduated from the top 30 universities, they may not consider applicants from universities outside the top 100. This affects social justice and trust.
b: Integrate AI as an auxiliary tool into learning, information search, and daily decision-making and planning. In academic writing, I may use AI tools (such as ChatGPT/Deepseek) for preliminary data sorting, grammar correction (grammarly), or structural suggestions. Of course, as a student/scholar, any use of AI must provide a statement or cite AI. In daily life, I may use ChatGPT to arrange a review plan for my economics exam or a multi-tasking plan.
An example of making an exam review plan for the econ final by ChatGPT
Question: a) What current AI-related issues, developments, or decisions do you find especially relevant to contemporary society? Craft a short post to give your classmates an overview of the issues involved and why it’s so important.
I feel that current AI issues and developments that are the most relevant to contemporary society is specifically the ethical issues. I think that the environment where it stands is extremely fragile. The energy and water sources that are used by AI each day are extremely detrimental to the environment. Although these are very significant issues, there are other environmental and general ethical problems that are not as talked about and get swept under the rug. I feel that the biggest problem are the issues that go without being noticed that end up being the most harmful to certain human demographics and the earth. For example, environmentally, a lot of society doesn’t realize the waste that is produced in mass amounts that accumulates from the factories that build and develop artificial intelligence. These infrastructures are known to put harmful substances into the earth such as mercury and even lead. This is toxic to the soil and water surrounding the factory. It is important to note it ts especially exploitative that many undeveloped countries in the global south already suffer from poor air quality and un-clean water. Speaking to clean water, this is extremely concerning given that %25 of the global population does not have good access to clean water, and it is projected soon that global AI water usage will accumulate to exceed the water usage of an entire small country (such as Denmark – 6million). As water is one of the largest substances widely used in mass by AI production, energy is the other respectively. According to the International Energy Agency, a ChatGPT request doesn’t use double, not 5 times, but 10 times the amount of energy as a google search. The energy that is needed to produce these is very stressful specifically in our atmostphere as it contributes to higher carbon emissions. This can also all have effects directly on ecosystems that are smaller and have negative impacts on city water.
a) What current AI-related issues, developments, or decisions do you find especially relevant to contemporary society?
Nowadays, multiple rising issues are related to AI since more and more AI software is appearing. One of the issues I’m most concerned about with AI is deepfakes and misinformation. For instance, as a long-time K-pop follower, I can see the important impact this has in that industry. Last year, there was an incident called the “nth chat room” in South Korea (you can look it up on Google), where participants were men, even male K-pop idols, who participated in spreading deepfake photos related to female idols for the purpose of sexual harassment. The dissemination of such fake photos may be for blackmail and to damage the reputation of those involved. Furthermore, this practice can affect the mental health of the individuals involved. This has received attention from the online community because there have been suicide cases in this industry.
This is just one example to represent the vast social media space out there. When users join social media platforms, they can easily encounter clone accounts posting fake or AI-generated content that can threaten politics (elections, economics, etc.), communication, and the trust of participants. I feel like this is important because. Users need to have a sense of what is accurate information and which sources are really worth trusting. Otherwise, fake information spread across social media will affect many individuals at the same time.
