The creation and development of the internet is undoubtedly the most influential technology of the twenty-first century, clearly seen with the development and improvement of smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices all connecting to different search engines, social media platforms and practically anything else found online. As the internet progressively evolves every day, new developments are made to improve accessibility in a variety of ways, such as enhanced search features, simple shortcuts, or even major changes to ways to research and create. Artificial intelligence — commonly referred to as AI — has seen an upsurge in use since it was made accessible to the general public, allowing students to get away with not writing their own papers, harming the online art community, taking away job opportunities from many individuals, and deteriorating the environment.

   One of the clearest examples of why people are against the use of AI is students submitting papers in schools, which are not written by themselves but are instead written by AI writing programs. With the release of ChatGPT and similar Language Learning Models (LLMs), giving anyone that uses the services a response instantaneously, it’s extremely easy for students to enhance a pre-written essay, or have one entirely written for them with a simple one sentence prompt. 22 million papers were found to be 20 percent AI generated, and 6 million were 80 percent AI generated. This data totals to 11 percent and 3 percent respectively, and was gathered by the website Turnitin.com, which in the past was primarily used by teachers and professors to check for plagiarism but is now the new go-to website for many teachers to check their students’ work for AI (morningbrew.com). Despite this, Turnitin.com is an AI software in itself, which can often lead to incorrect results and misinformation. According to a study by Cornell University, Turnitin’s AI detector was only right 79 percent of the time, meaning that a fifth of the results were incorrect (cornell.edu). Additionally, Turnitin failed to recognize 30 percent of AI scripts, but notably because they were modified after being written by AI. This doesn’t have to be by a human though, as an AI modifying artificial writing can bypass turnitin (jakemiller.net). With Turnitin being one of the most used AI checkers in education, the rate of false responses by the software raises questions about the authenticity of the application and proves how easy it is for students to use artificial intelligence to cheat.

   Artificial intelligence has more uses outside of generating words alone, as seen in the creation of audio, images, and videos. According to a website about artificial intelligence, “Just like LLMs, AI image generators are trained on image data scraped from the internet, much of it copyrighted, and almost all of it without the artists’ permission” (css-irl.info). Taking human made work and poorly altering it to one’s desire is a detriment to the art community, a sentiment shared by artist and UC Alumni Bee Gardner. “The point of art is to create something, often as an outlet for emotions, and AI generated images can only attempt to dully mimic this effect. It can also be used as a cheaper alternative to human artists in business settings, meaning that more companies are using lower quality art made by AI in order to save money,” said Gardner. AI is taking the creativity out of a process that should be original, which goes against the primary idea that AI is a tool to help us complete tasks we don’t want to do. This has gotten so bad that it is to the point that AI is taking jobs from artists, but these aren’t the only jobs at risk.

   Automation with AI has started to encroach on jobs in many fields, which may benefit managers when it comes to efficiency but will ultimately harm the working class that need many of these jobs to survive. According to the University of Michigan Journal of Economics, “There are not enough training programs for people to adjust to the new AI world. It makes it even harder for people who are already working in low-income professions to develop skills and empower themselves economically. Since the 2000s, automation systems have already eliminated 1.7 million jobs. This number is only going to increase as AI plays a bigger role in everyone’s lives.” (lsa.umich.edu). When job opportunities are taken over by AI, those people who were removed from those positions must seek out new ones. There’s a good chance that these people don’t have the power or the fortitude to find high paying jobs within their set of skills, leading them towards jobs that pay less, give few promotion opportunities, and have less job security.

  With the array of problems presented with AI, one stands out as worse than the rest: environmental impact. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, there are four main issues with AI and the environment. The data centers that house AI computers take up many materials, with 800 kilograms of raw materials needed for a 2 kilogram computer. These data centers often produce lead and mercury, and are estimated to use 6.6 billion cubic meters of water in 2027. Lastly, fossil fuels are used to power AI, adding to greenhouse gas emissions. When seeing that one AI search is as bad as 10 google searches, it becomes clear how potent AI is to harm the environment (unep.org).

   Artificial intelligence is an incredible advancement in modern technology, but it poses threats to humanity in a variety of ways. AI gives students the opportunity to not write their own assignments, and causes teachers to go outside of their job description to make sure papers are turned in without the use of AI. The art community is being affected negatively as their creativity and skills are being mimicked by AI, harming the community in the process. Jobs are being given to automated AI rather than humans, meaning that people have even less careers to choose from, and often have to settle for lower paying jobs. Our environment is being ruined by the data centers created to fuel AI, using up valuable resources and outputting harmful gasses. Altogether, the use of AI is unethical and harms humanity to a great extent, and the detriments outweigh the benefits anyday.