Should You Stop Asking AI About Personal Matters?

The end of the free internet or the beginning of controlled prompts?

Photo by Ruben Mavarez on Unsplash

Here, in my blog, I talk about movies, but today I want to touch on another topic. I thought about it for a long time, but Pavel Durov’s recent post about a free internet gave me the confidence I needed to write this article. I hope that at the time of publication and afterward, the post will still be available. *https://t.me/durov/452*

**DISCLAIMER: **With this article, I am not promoting conspiracy theories, nor am I trying to convince you that you need to wear a tin foil hat. I simply want to give you my opinion and perhaps some food for thought. My main goal with this text is simply for you to check all the information. Dig down to the original source and its veracity, question what you are told, and look for confirmation of the words to verify the truth.

I started using the wonders of Artificial Intelligence in 2022, like many people who are interested in technology and live on their computers. At that time, today’s giants such as OpenAI began to emerge, I used the first versions of Midjourney, and was amazed by the third model of ChatGPT. It was something new and unusual. And since then, there has been an AI boom.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_boom*

Let’s return to the present day. Just open YouTube, Instagram, or X (formerly Twitter), and the entire feed is teeming with news, examples, and “creative solutions” related to generating something. Nowadays, anyone who is not too lazy generates videos. Everyone thinks that they can just ask a question in one of hundreds of chat rooms and get answers to all of life’s questions, solutions to all of their problems, and a finished product/tool that will make them rich. And now this trend is present in almost every corner of the world where there is access to the internet.

I am by no means opposed to the abolition of AI. I love progress, and I am glad to be living in the age of the internet, when all the world’s information is stored in a single browser query, and most of it is completely free. The works of great scientists, the poetry of world philosophers, or the works of great creators are all available right now for free or for a price comparable to a cup of coffee. I am all for reducing routine processes to a minimum, doing them in a couple of seconds, and paying attention to the things that really matter.

But why am I bringing this up? As strange as it may sound, today’s progress is making modern people dumber. People are less and less likely to verify the accuracy of information, do not check primary sources, and believe what they are given in response to a chat request. Undoubtedly, it is much more convenient to write or say one phrase into a microphone and then copy the result than to understand the topic yourself and find solutions.

But don’t corporations compile statistics and see the real picture? That’s why I mentioned the post by Telegram creator Pavel Durov at the beginning. In it, he described how today’s internet has become a controlled environment, with strict monitoring of everything that is said and shown.

What was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control.

A dark, dystopian world is approaching fast — while we’re asleep. Our generation risks going down in history as the last one that had freedoms — and allowed them to be taken away.

Studying world history, I realized that when an idea gains traction in different parts of the world, it immediately becomes an instrument of power. Religious and political beliefs, regardless of who your god or head of state is, all become instruments of power. Always! The same thing is happening now. Censored responses and generations give users their own controlled worldview. I think this will lead to exactly what Durov is talking about, to a real threat to freedom, not only of speech, but also of thought.

I have been thinking a lot about the current state of AI and how information is presented to us in the media. I often find myself wondering whether this boom will lead to Big Brother-style control. I am not at all interested in theories about Freemasons, global conspiracies, aliens, or anything like that. I just observe trends in the media, in various media sources. And the global trend is almost the same regardless of the country.

But how is your query related to neural networks and global media? Modern AI learns based on the new material it receives. At first, it was only what was already on the internet, everything that was indexed, but now it’s all kinds of sources, the main one being, of course, the consumer, that is, all of us who uploaded photos to find out what that strange key in my garage is, a draft of a painting we want to draw, or a photo we want to edit without knowing how to use Photoshop, text for an Instagram post, to attract attention, or simply adding emojis, as it is faster and easier. All of this contributes to improving the result.

AI has been in development for decades, but such crazy growth has only occurred thanks to the concept of rapid content generation. Humans are lazy by nature, and this has contributed to the popularity of this technology. Until recently, AI was used in completely different fields, but mainly in science. Scientists were able to analyze and collect petabytes of data using this tool. Perhaps even decades have changed thanks to the fact that data analysis and collection have become easier. Unfortunately, this tool is now being used to generate meaningless videos on TikTok, with the sole purpose of attracting attention so that the channel’s author can more effectively sell their courses on “personal growth” or astrology and numerology. And this is increasingly in demand. And that’s scary.

My main concern right now is that sooner or later, content generation will become so humanized and indistinguishable from reality. The old DeepFake technology, which is already quite advanced, will at some point lead to the mass emergence of new “artificial” opinion leaders who will promote certain ideas, and it will be difficult or impossible for the average person to distinguish between a generated image and a real person. I don’t even want to speculate about the amount of fraud that will occur in various areas.

Of course, there will also be a counterforce that will fight misinformation and fake news, but today’s people have become too trusting of those who speak first and eloquently.

I am currently working with a business consulting firm, and recently I heard from them that many aspiring entrepreneurs fail at the business plan stage. For a completely ridiculous reason. They are denied certain services because their business plan and other documents are written in ChatGPT. People don’t even edit what they write, they just mindlessly press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Government employees have to refuse them, given the risk factors. Now imagine that some of them still managed to pass business moderation and gained access to the international market. And let’s say the business is related to the field of human health. The same goes for the agricultural sector, medicine, and many other areas. How do you think a person who relies solely on the answers provided by a neural network, often accessible for free, will be able to correctly influence the health of their end consumer? You can answer this question in the comments.

I usually analyze my text using AI to understand where I can add to it, where I’ve overcomplicated things, to simply look at it from the outside, and maybe find a new fact. To prove my point, I DID NOT USE AI TO HELP ME WITH THIS TEXT, not even to check the spelling. You are reading it as it was written in one go, without editing! It doesn’t have a clear structure, because I wrote it without any preparation, and I know very well that structure and linearity are my main weaknesses in writing. But here, everything was written in one breath.

After all, it is precisely silly mistakes that distinguish us from the automated ideal.