How many times have you been doomscrolling on either TikTok or Instagram Reels and seen a video of an animal bouncing on a trampoline? How about a video of Squidward being arrested in real life? Sorry to break it to you, but those are all generated with the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
One website, Sora 2, has been increasing in popularity recently, with users pumping out AI-generated videos onto TikTok, Instagram Reels and more. Some of these videos are harmless, but others that I’ve seen are borderline cruel, often making someone say something they didn’t — which is exactly what many opponents of generative AI have seen coming.
Some users on TikTok are using this to create entirely new scenes from different shows, with the most popular one being SpongeBob SquarePants. These scenes have never existed, and if you didn’t see the Sora watermark, you might actually think it’s real.
I’ll admit, even with years of being media literate, I have been fooled quite a few times recently, which does not feel good at all. As a photographer and a videographer, this makes me fearful about my career going forward.
The use of AI is not just limited to social media now. It is spreading across Point Park like a wildfire. It grew a few months back when Student Activities, Involvement and Leadership (SAIL) used AI to generate art for the Welcome Week poster.
However, that isn’t what this article is about. The matter has been addressed by SAIL and has been rectified.
The main item of concern in regards to AI on campus is the AI policy.
Almost every class I’ve had here listed in the syllabus that the use of AI was strictly prohibited. Now, there’s a newer policy.
Some classes are encouraging the use of AI as an organizational or supplemental tool. The Point Park website even has a page dedicated to AI resources.
This may be seen as a good thing, but this can be a problem. Encouraging the use of AI only allows for more abuse of it. I have used AI tools before to help sort different items for class, but I no longer do that.
AI is not only a thief of other peoples’ work, but it’s also very bad for the environment.
The vast majority of AI models are trained on other’s creations. This means that whenever you generate an idea with AI, it is essentially using someone else’s idea. This was the original point of not allowing AI usage in classrooms — to avoid plagiarism.
There are also a vast amount of people who utilize ChatGPT to find answers to their questions, as opposed to using Google, like everyone used to. A few people online call this “second-class thinking.”
AI is not creative. It is an excuse for lazy and uncreative people to complete a project faster. Maybe it actually does help with organization, but in reality, it’s so much better if you organize things yourself.
Additionally, datacenters that sustain AI can also lead to damage in the overall environment.
According to Business Energy UK, “Every time you prompt Midjourney or ChatGPT to generate an image, an explanation or an email, the host company’s servers run thousands of calculations to deliver the goods. This process uses vast amounts of energy.”
AI is an epidemic that is only going to spiral into something more dangerous.
In an article by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the author, Adam Zewe, states that, “Beyond electricity demands, a great deal of water is needed to cool the hardware used for training, deploying, and fine-tuning generative AI models, which can strain municipal water supplies and disrupt local ecosystems.
“The increasing number of generative AI applications has also spurred demand for high-performance computing hardware, adding indirect environmental impacts from its manufacture and transport.”
I’m a bit surprised Point Park’s administration didn’t research this more when writing this rule. For a campus that prides itself for being green, promoting the use of AI directly contradicts that statement.
As AI evolves, so too will the impact it has on the environment. If you do use AI, I recommend using it sparingly and only when you need to. Even then, there really isn’t much use for it.
