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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethics of artificial intelligence | 6/12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_artificial_intelligence | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T06:58:46.886169+00:00 | kb-cron |
Deepfakes are digital media, typically in the form of videos, audio, or images, in which a person’s likeness or voice is digitally replaced or altered using AI. The term “deepfake” is a portmanteau involving the words “deep” and “fake”. Deep is in reference to deep learning such as generative adversarial networks (GANs). The term first emerged and gained widespread attention on the platform Reddit in 2017 after users began sharing non-consensually generated images with each other (MIT Sloan). By the early 2020s, as AI generating software became readily available to many, deepfake became a household term. This term first gained traction on Reddit, where users began sharing non-consensual images among each other. With the advancement of deepfake technology and AI, in specific, we began to see deepfakes of public figures emerge, often involving images of inappropriate or controversial actions. People in the spotlight, especially politicians, are increasingly finding themselves being framed in deepfake videos or images displaying inappropriate symbols or actions (The Guardian). Deepfake technology not only is being used to slander people it is also being used for online scams. In 2022 and 2023, scammers used deepfake technology to mimic the voice of executives, family members, close relatives. The scams resulted in defrauding both businesses and consumers for millions of dollars (CNN).
=== Increasing use === AI has been slowly making its presence more known throughout the world, from chatbots that seemingly have answers for every homework question to generative AI that can create a painting about whatever one desires. AI has become increasingly popular in hiring markets, from the ads that target certain people according to what they are looking for to the inspection of applications of potential hires. Events such as COVID-19 have sped up the adoption of AI programs in the application process, due to more people having to apply electronically, and with this increase in online applicants the use of AI made the process of narrowing down potential employees easier and more efficient. AI has become more prominent as businesses have to keep up with the times and ever-expanding internet. Processing analytics and making decisions becomes much easier with the help of AI. As Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) become more powerful, AI capabilities also increase, forcing companies to use it to keep up with the competition. Managing customers' needs and automating many parts of the workplace leads to companies having to spend less money on employees. AI has also seen increased usage in criminal justice and healthcare. For medicinal means, AI is being used more often to analyze patient data to make predictions about future patients' conditions and possible treatments. These programs are called clinical decision support systems (DSS). AI's future in healthcare may develop into something further than just recommended treatments, such as referring certain patients over others, leading to the possibility of inequalities.
=== AI welfare ===
In 2020, professor Shimon Edelman noted that only a small portion of work in the rapidly growing field of AI ethics addressed the possibility of AIs experiencing suffering. This was despite credible theories having outlined possible ways by which AI systems may become conscious, such as the global workspace theory or the integrated information theory. Edelman notes one exception had been Thomas Metzinger, who in 2018 called for a global moratorium on further work that risked creating conscious AIs. The moratorium was to run to 2050 and could be either extended or repealed early, depending on progress in better understanding the risks and how to mitigate them. Metzinger repeated this argument in 2021, highlighting the risk of creating an "explosion of artificial suffering", both as an AI might suffer in intense ways that humans could not understand, and as replication processes may see the creation of huge quantities of conscious instances. Podcast host Dwarkesh Patel said he cared about making sure no "digital equivalent of factory farming" happens. In the ethics of uncertain sentience, the precautionary principle is often invoked. Several labs have openly stated they are trying to create conscious AIs. There have been reports from those with close access to AIs not openly intended to be self aware, that consciousness may already have unintentionally emerged. These include OpenAI founder Ilya Sutskever in February 2022, when he wrote that today's large neural nets may be "slightly conscious". In November 2022, David Chalmers argued that it was unlikely current large language models like GPT-3 had experienced consciousness, but also that he considered there to be a serious possibility that large language models may become conscious in the future. Anthropic hired its first AI welfare researcher in 2024, and in 2025 started a "model welfare" research program that explores topics such as how to assess whether a model deserves moral consideration, potential "signs of distress", and "low-cost" interventions. According to Carl Shulman and Nick Bostrom, it may be possible to create machines that would be "superhumanly efficient at deriving well-being from resources", called "super-beneficiaries". One reason for this is that digital hardware could enable much faster information processing than biological brains, leading to a faster rate of subjective experience. These machines could also be engineered to feel intense and positive subjective experience, unaffected by the hedonic treadmill. Shulman and Bostrom caution that failing to appropriately consider the moral claims of digital minds could lead to a moral catastrophe, while uncritically prioritizing them over human interests could be detrimental to humanity.
=== Threat to human dignity ===
Joseph Weizenbaum argued in 1976 that AI technology should not be used to replace people in positions that require respect and care, such as: