Understanding AI

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From being known by relatively few people and understood by even fewer, the term AI (or artificial intelligence) is now in common usage with everybody from tech experts to the general population. What most people also know is that it has both positive and negative aspects.

AI has been with us for far longer than you might realise, playing its part in many aspects of our everyday lives from social media to satnav, online dating to booking a table. Constantly increasing in sophistication, it now forms a major part of many organisations’ strategy and enables huge advances in most fields from healthcare to transportation, manufacturing to marketing, finance to crime prevention. For individuals, a number of generative AI tools are freely available for searching and producing content.

The definition of AI

AI is a technology that is built on models which are trained on either a set amount of data or data available on the internet, depending on how the program has been configured. Generative AI – the type frequently used to generate content – uses what it has learnt to generate responses based on ‘prompts’ provided by a user.

What are the everyday issues?

As welI as the great things it can do, AI has a number of negative aspects – aside from concerns that it’s taking over jobs and giving its users unfair advantage.

Most online crime and other harms have always involved impersonation – whether it’s of your bank, the tax authorities or other government department, someone you talk to on social media, a gaming or dating site, a celebrity supposedly endorsing a product or service … or even a friend or colleague. Now, however, AI makes fraudulent photos, videos, phone calls and video calls far more realistic and convincing.
AI is also being used increasingly to produce deepfake videos for illegal or immoral purposes.
It is also being used to create and target messages aimed at changing your political or ideological views.
Another risk is becoming too reliant on AI to perform various tasks which should be carried out by yourself. For example, if you rely on AI to produce any kind of content, the result is only as good as what it can find online and could therefore be either inaccurate or irrelevant. It also means that you’re not using your own skills, which could mislead teachers or employers and become apparent when you take exams or seek a promotion.

Read our top tips to get AI-safe online

More than ever, maintain vigilance for attempts at fraud or identity theft. AI is now being widely used by cybercriminals to impersonate legitimate people or organisations, so ask yourself if a request for money or information seems right.

Learn to spot the signs: does a voice in a video or soundtrack sound automated or unnatural? Do photos and videos look as though they’re filtered, are videos jerky? Would the person in the video or voice recording really be saying what they appear to be saying? Is there anything that just doesn’t look or sound authentic?

If somebody sends or posts a deepfake video or photo of yourself that offends for any reason, report it and request that they’re blocked from using the platform.

The outputs of generative AI platforms are only as good as the information they have acquired and learned. It always pays to check other sources that you know to be reliable for accuracy and truthfulness.

Don’t believe everything you read, see or hear, however authentic it may seem. AI is being used very successfully to manipulate you into actions and beliefs.

When using generative AI, don’t reveal unnecessary personal or confidential information about yourself, your family, friends or finances, as this may appear in the results of other users’ queries.