Artificial intelligence is becoming part of everyday life, but how do we make sure it’s not a crutch? AI technology consultant Mohit Rajhans believes it’s becoming more difficult to differentiate between a video on social media or AI-generated content. “The truth is, we’re all in these bubbles,” said Rajhans on CTV Your Morning Edmonton. “What once was a meme or a picture that you can share with friends is now a video that you can manipulate very easily and influence decision-making and discussions around everything from politics to your quality of life.” Major platforms like Meta (Facebook/Instagram) blocked news organizations in 2023, in response to the country’s Online News Act (Bill C-18) which requires tech giants to pay news publishers for content. “In some cases, some of this synthetic information about politics, made up stuff, fake news, is being spread at a rapid pace,” said Rajhans. “There’s not many guardrails that we can look at and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Let’s make sure that these people are reprimanded for what they’re doing.’” Although artificial intelligence can be problematic for online users, there are some tools and hints for people to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not. “I use a lot of these tools and some of them from an education perspective. I don’t know how to do calculus, but it helps me help my child with calculus. I make synthetic videos as explainers to help digest complex issues. There’s a massive utility to AI that’s being used everywhere, from the health sector right down to third world nations, to help communicate,” said Rajhans. “There are some guardrails, like watermarks on AI synthetic video, but you could remove those with other AI,” Rajhans added. “We have to understand that we can’t necessarily put our heads down and wait for these big companies to set the guardrails for us because this is all happening in real time.” Earlier this week, Malaysia and Indonesia blocked access to Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, citing concerns over non-consensual deepfakes that were modeled after real people online. Rajhans says this is one of many reasons the topic of AI has become problematic. “The Canadian government announced that they were probably looking at reasons to ban social media for youth. Let’s be honest. What’s happening with Grok is a utility factor. It’s the idea that you can do so many great things with video that so many people were using it for the wrong reasons.” “We’re talking about a world that has a large digital footprint,” Rajhans added. “We need to reboot what media literacy is. A lot of people used to think that everything was social media bullying and cyber bullying. Now, we have to talk to our kids about what it means to utilize some of these in our everyday lives, including social media.” More information on Mohit Rajhans and his work can be found at thinkstart.ca.
