My Love/Hate for GenAI

I have a love/hate relationship with Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). This type of AI what most people think of when (if?) they think about AI. It's what's using large language models (LLMs) to build chatbots, create fake restaurant receipts, and help students cheat on their assignments.

First, let me explain what I love about GenAI. It's great at helping people find information, the proverbial needle in a haystack. I love the idea of building an LLM from a company's HR policies and turning that into an internal-only chatbot that employees can use to get their questions answered.

I love the idea of building an LLM based on my own writing so that I can generate content "in my own words" using GenAI. (Whether using it is against academic integrity standards is a different discussion.) I love the idea of artists using GenAI to customize their own work to make it more commercially viable. These are all ways that GenAI can be used to make people more efficient at what they do, and I'm all for that!

Now, here's what I hate: I hate GenAI being used to create new "art" works in anyone's style by anyone but the original artist. That is IP theft, pure and simple, and IMO those responsible should have to pay or be shut down. Those responsible for this are not just the users of the models, they're the creators of them.

The promise of AI is to free us from the mundane so we can spend more time creating art. If GenAI is allowed to destroy the livelihoods of professional artists, then it's doing the opposite. This will not just have negative repercussion for those artists, but for society itself.