Ascendancy of AI or Descendancy of Privacy?
- Ananya Saril
- Jul 4
- 4 min read
The global AI market is worth about 279.22 billion US dollars (as of 2024), whereas India’s food production industry is worth about 307 billion US dollars, which is approximately 1.1 times the worth of the global AI market. We must consider the fact that AI is not a necessity for humans. However, the trend has started changing in recent times. AI is now required in the workplace and at schools, and some people even use it for virtually anything, from creating a prompt for a new LinkedIn post to composing an email to their boss. But this is not even 5% of what AI can do; there’s much more. In March 2023, an AI-generated video of Will Smith eating spaghetti was released. Though its differences from real images were evident, we noticed the extent to which the security and privacy of a person are disrupted.
INSIGHTFUL STATISTICS ON AI
According to McKinsey 2023, AI could add a staggering 25.6 trillion US dollars to the world economy. To the people worrying about their replacement of jobs by AI, there has been a study by Goldman Sachs in 2023. It shows that AI could partially automate two-thirds of jobs. But many of these jobs will be complemented by AI, not substituted by it. We must understand that AI is something like a substitute and cannot completely take the place of people if used properly. According to a study by PwC in 2023, 73% of US companies use AI in some aspect of their business. It would be very fascinating to know that over 25% of investments in American startups went to an AI-related company in 2023. By comparison, artificial intelligence startups received around 12% of total funding between 2018 and 2022.Following its release in November 2022, ChatGPT reached over a million users in just 5 days and about 100 million users within JUST TWO MONTHS. This made it the fastest-growing consumer app ever at the time, which was later beaten by Facebook’s Threads app.
INCREASING AI CRIMES
AI has been developing so fast that they have started to understand human emotions like excitement, happiness, joy, sorrow, etc. Open AI and other leading AI companies have developed their AI so much that they can even manipulate the audio and visuals, and even detect the place where the video has been taken. After such AI, there have been reported many cases of kidnapping using the voice of the people, which were taken from various social media platforms, for example, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Being Indians, we need to be even more careful (as AI has still not permeated the Indian social fabric entirely) because our desi moms love to post our whole lives on their Facebook. The famous Indian cricketer Virat Kohli has been a victim of an AI crime in which an AI-generated video was released of Virat Kohli advertising a fake app. Also, former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar has been spotted as a victim of a similar AI crime in which an AI-generated video has been released of him advertising a fake app; in that video, it was also said that his daughter also uses that app. This is very dangerous in a political environment, as anybody can easily generate fake videos and spread misinformation by portraying it with ministers and political leaders, etc.
DETECTING AI-GENERATED VIDEOS
AI has not been developed sufficiently in this case, so we cannot even differentiate between AI-generated videos and original videos. If we pay close attention to the movement of lips in such videos as those of Sachin Tendulkar or Virat Kohli, we notice that they are manipulated. The audio also does not feel as original, which is another way to spot fake AI-generated videos. The quality of such videos is normally low too. And in general, too, we must consider the promoted content, for example, if it is about receiving 10 times the amount you invested, it is most probably fake. For this, OpenAI has put a watermark at the bottom right of their AI-generated videos to show that they are not original.
FILM INDUSTRY’S POV ON AI
To look at the brighter side, we must consider the way AI has helped in cost reduction in the film industry. The producers won’t have to spend so much time and money to cast a single scene; they can just put the prompt and generate a text-to-video. The director of the very iconic Avengers, Joe Russo, has said that AI would be making a whole 3-hour movie by itself in just 2 years. Tyler Perry told the Hollywood Reporter that his studio has put on hold 800 million US dollars in expansion due to AI advancements, noting Sora by name. This is also beneficial to movie maker enthusiasts who were always put down by the cost of making a movie, but can now make it as easily as baking a cake.
WAR IS NOT OVER.
After all, we can’t blame any company for the advancement of technology, as at one time, people were against giving printing rights to anybody but the church. AI is helpful and reduces the human effort required, but it also threatens people in many ways. Now, the choice is ours, whether to depend on AI or to DEPEND on AI.
EXCERPT
The meteoric rise of AI promises staggering economic gains and revolutionary efficiency, from automating business tasks to slashing film production costs. Yet, this ascendancy comes at a steep price: the erosion of personal privacy and security. Deepfake scams targeting icons like Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar, AI-enabled voice cloning for kidnappings, and the weaponization of misinformation highlight a chilling reality. AI's ability to manipulate reality now forces a critical choice: embrace its transformative power for progress or succumb to a dangerous descent where trust and truth are casualties. The war between AI's potential and privacy protection has only just begun.
By Priyanshi Parashar
Priyanshi Parashar is a first-year B.Sc. (Hons.) Statistics student at the University of Delhi. With a strong foundation in accounting, finance, statistics, and mathematics, she's passionate about understanding diverse business models. Priyanshi also excels at research and writing, effectively combining her analytical abilities with clear communication.
References-
Comments