Do you need AI

Over the years, artificial intelligence has grown from an experimental concept to a household name. We see AI implemented in various devices and applications, from chatbots to AI video generators. It has become a crucial part of our daily lives, but here comes a question: Do you need AI?

Artificial intelligence isn’t a recent concept; first coined by John McCarthy in 1955, the idea of having machines perform tasks originally limited to humans has been a fascinating idea seen in various cultures, for example, Talos, an automated bronze giant built by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. The concept of AI has undergone various iterations by various great minds. As computing power and data availability improved, the potential of AI grew exponentially.

With the rise of the Transformer architecture, proposed by Google scientists, we now have improved large language and diffusion models that provide us with the ability to perform tasks beyond our capabilities, but the growth is met with backlash from critics. AI isn’t an all-knowing tool; it generates results using trained weights. This doesn’t guarantee accuracy, which leads to cases where outputs sound compelling but are completely wrong. Aside from this, we also have the possible use of image and video generation models for impersonation and all sorts of unethical activities. This has led to a recurring question: Is AI a blessing or a curse?

Many people fail to realize AI is a tool, and every tool functions according to the wielder. For example, the internet has been a great tool for information sharing, online collaboration, and communication, but at the same time, it’s also helped with online scams, promotion of illicit content, and various unethical activities. With this in mind, the question changes from ‘do you need AI?’ to ‘What do you plan on using AI for?’, If this can’t be answered, then perhaps you don’t need AI after all