Whether it be an artificial intelligence overview on your latest Google search, Instagram’s Meta AI or Snapchat’s My AI, we encounter AI no matter how hard we try to avoid it. 

Discomforting, borderline lifelike images and videos have become routine. Shivers run down your spine when the system’s flaws become apparent, and suddenly, we are questioning what is real and what is not. Disinformation aided by the use of AI is rampant, making many people feel uneasy about what the future may hold with these systems. However, I believe AI, as unsettling as it may be, will have the capabilities to skyrocket human development if controlled by the right characters. 

AI is tasked with replicating the thought process and decision-making of humans through computer algorithms, but its use varies. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing use AI to refine and show better results on your searches. Social media platforms, on the other hand, use AI to find out what users like and dislike, in turn keeping them engaged longer. 

This is what we often forget when using social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, run by trillion-dollar companies such as Meta: we are the product. The way they are able to run such a lucrative business is now through AI gaining information on us to sell to companies and keep us addicted. 

Every ad or influencer we see is tailored to us by our searches, likes, comments and interactions. This is where the issue arises with the use of AI, as it borders on an invasion of privacy but is possibly an illusion of privacy we never had. 

Students like Eli Multon, a finance major at DePaul, can agree we never really had true privacy online. 

“As far as privacy goes, I don’t know how much it changes,” Multon said. “Social media platforms have always had an issue with privacy and data collection.” 

In 2018, Facebook faced a lawsuit alleging that thousands of third parties acquired access to its data without consent and that Facebook failed to monitor how these parties used the information adequately. Facebook agreed to a $725 million settlement. AI does not change this system; it only makes it better, and therefore more profitable.

Whether we embrace or reject AI is irrelevant — it is embedded in our lives now. 

Neve Murray, a sophomore at DePaul, sees a darker future ahead, joking that we could find ourselves in a situation like “The Terminator” or “The Matrix.” 

“If you don’t think that AI is going to be used in crime and in awful, heinous ways and be used against other people, then you are lying to yourself,” Murray said. 

Fears about AI replacing jobs and ushering in a dystopian future are not new. Humans on the brink of a change poised to be bigger than the industrial revolutions throughout history have felt insecurities about what the future may hold, and rightfully so.

Researchers predict that this historic advancement will create new jobs, provided it is implemented ethically. As these systems are almost inevitable, it is imperative that we push for regulation on protecting human jobs and safety internationally. 

Demis Hassabis, CEO and cofounder of Google’s DeepMind, predicts that artificial general intelligence, which is AI with human-level cognition, is five years away. Used correctly, it can cure diseases, solve worldwide water scarcity and combat climate change. 

Multon is skeptical that human greed would allow such progress to be shared. 

“It could find the cure for cancer and give it to us, but we’re not gonna use it because it’s bad for the elite,” Multon said. 

Murray added that the use of AI to spread disinformation on social media is rampant. It is creating illusions that are becoming increasingly harder for the average person to tell what is real and what is fake. 

“Look at all the people who voted for the current president due to fake news and ridiculous things that spread through social media,” Murray said. “Then, when you pair AI with that, it makes it impossible to tell if it’s real or fake.” 

In 2024, a fake article about Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife buying a $4.5 million car with American military aid money was pushed to the top of Google search by AI bots, Russian state media and pro-Trump influencers. AI is constantly spreading disinformation, in doing so, influencing our human geopolitical climate. 

This is why researchers are calling for global regulations. AI affects everyone — borders are irrelevant in the digital world. 

Still, Murray remains pessimistic. 

“Say it figures out solutions to our world problems. We would still need humans to band together and implement them,” she said. “There’s this race to develop it quickly, letting greed get in the way of what could be a genuine threat to people.”  

In a time of immense uncertainty around this AI and what our future may hold with it, we must embrace the potential it can give human development while remaining cautious and critical of its flaws. The question is not whether AI will shape our future, but whether we will shape it responsibly.

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