In the modern world, the media industry continually integrates Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its operations. AI enables machines to learn, reason, and make decisions at par with human beings. AI has changed how media is produced, shared, and applied, but at the same time, it is a threat to media ethics, quality, and impact. The essay discusses that AI damages media by propagating social media privacy, security, and democracy, creating ethical and legal concerns in media production. It alters media consumers’ cognition, emotion, and social interaction—the negative impacts of AI on the media business and us.
Introduction
Aside from the above, artificial intelligence (AI) enables machines to perform those things people do, like learning, thinking, and decision-making. Further, artificial intelligence (AI) has been deployed to the media, not to mention other sectors and fields, changing how folks develop, provide, and experience media. AI has caused media platforms to offer user-specific interactive content, media creators to create realistic and imaginative content, and pressurize media consumers to find and have access to abundant and plentiful forms of content. Conversely, AI poses substantial challenges and threats to media ethics, quality, and impact. In this paper, I will argue that AI negatively affects media by infringing privacy security and democracy in social media, creating ethical and legal issues in production, and affecting human cognition, emotion, and social interaction in consumption. AI revolutionizes how media is produced, distributed, and consumed while threatening its ethics, quality, and effect.
AI in social media can collect and analyze user data.
AI in media has a negative effect where it poses risks to privacy, security, and democracy in social media platforms. Social media platforms, therefore, collect and analyze, through their AI, the personal information, preferences, behavior, and network of the users so that they provide as output personalized and targeted content and advertisements, among others. However, as a result, the user’s data can be accessed, shared, or even sold to third parties without their consent, putting them at greater risk of identity theft, privacy intrusions, cyberattacks, and listeners. For example, the Cambridge Analytica embarrassment saw Facebook furnish a political counseling firm with many clients’ information, utilizing something similar to impact both the Brexit referendum and the 2016 American presidential elections.
Another aspect of AI-related issues in view is the dissemination and government awareness of false information and disinformation harming an individual, a community, or society at large. AI can produce or improve misinformation and the distribution of disinformation by providing inaccurate or doctored information, including deepfakes, which show up as life-like videos or images realistically made up of people engaged in saying or doing something they never did. AI can manipulate online discourse, public opinion, and behavior using bots and automated accounts to post, like, comment, or share content (Yang et al.). For example, one research indicates that about 20% of the Twitter about the 2016 US presidential election was produced by bots and that the bots were more likely than users to spread pro-Trump or anti-Clinton messages indecently. Moreover, it would also exploit the hard-wired cognitive biases and emotional triggers of users in making them more liable to being sucked into by misinformation and disinformation or even spreading them out themselves – at least when the content they interact with affirms their perspectives or values. That could threaten the quality and trustworthiness of information, undermine trust towards institutions and professionals, and polarize or radicalize society.
AI in media production may raise ethical and legal questions.
For example, AI in media production can raise ethical and legal issues by creating fake or manipulated content for disseminating false information about an individual, organization, or institution to misguide the public. Deepfakes are made possible by deep learning algorithms, which use AI to swap faces, voices, or other attributes in photographs and videos. Deepfakes can be used for entertaining, satirizing, or even educating. However, it can also be to malicious intents like being used for creating misleading information, ruining reputation and slandering others, for blackmailing offenses, or impersonating too. For example, the use of deepfakes has been used to create and disseminate fake news, fake porn, and propaganda, as well as make fake evidence for endorsements. Deepfakes have raised concerns about the ethics and legality of privacy, consent, protection of intellectual property rights, credibility, as well as negligence of accountability.
Developers, media creators, media platforms, regulators, and consumers need to take various measures to help mitigate AI’s ethical and legal concerns in media production. AI developers must create AI systems that will be transparent, accountable, and fair and incorporate their moral principles and human values. Media creators should use AI responsibly and ethically (Jobin et al.) while disclosing information regarding AI’s involvement in the creation of media or modification of its content. Social media platforms should monitor, verify, and moderate the content they host, providing tools and information to users to make intelligent decisions about which content to trust and share. The regulators should be obliged to structure and enforce laws and standards to protect the rights and interests of the people being hurt by AI in media production and to balance their innovation and regulation. Customers ought to be aware of and critical of the content they consume and produce, and they ought to look for evidence and reliable sources.
AI in media can harm cognition, emotion, and social interaction.
Artificial intelligence in media consumption can adversely affect human cognition, emotion, and social interaction as it lower critical thinking, raises bias, and inhibits addiction and isolation. AI technology could shape what people see, hear, and think through personalized and curated content, recommendations, and feedback based on user data and preferences. However, it can also result in echo chambers, filter bubbles, and confirmation bias, exposing people to only one or similar views, opinions, and information. Hence, they are less likely to encounter or consider diverse or opposing perspectives. This could limit their knowledge and understanding ability to empathize while increasing their polarization, prejudice, and intolerance. Moreover, AI can ease people’s feelings and actions by eliciting emotions and motivations and conducting them with rewards, awards, and behavior modification. On the other hand, though, this can also bring about addiction, dependency, and manipulation, where people are hooked to or influenced by the AI system and lose their autonomy, agency, and self-control.
Different stakeholders, from AI developers, media creators, media platforms, educators, and consumers, may adopt diverse strategies to reduce the negative impacts of AI on media consumption. AI developers must design AI systems to be inclusive, diverse, respectful, critical, and emotional (Peters et al.). Media producers must produce correct, truthful, high-quality content instead of returning to sensationalism, propaganda, and clickbait age. Media platforms will provide a diverse and balanced range of recommendations and feedback and enable users to control and customize their preferences and settings. Media literacy and digital citizenship should be guided by educators, as well as help the development of critical and emotional intelligence thinking skills. A consumer must be conscious and responsible, looking for multiple credible sources and viewpoints.
Conclusion
In conclusion, whereas AI offers a significant promise of transforming the process of producing, distributing, and consuming media, it also holds substantial challenges and risks facing media ethics, quality, and impact. AI threatens the privacy, security, and democracy of social media, causes ethical and legal problems in social media production, and influences human cognition, emotion, and social interaction in media consumption. To address these challenges, various stakeholders should put measures and adopt strategies that promote transparency, accountability, diversity, and responsibility in minimizing the adverse effects of AI in media. While AI proceeds its advance and subsequent influence on the media, it is essential to have an AI serving rather than imposing people’s interests and well-being in addition to contributing to a more informed, democratic, and ethical society. Further research and action are due to be performed to explore the potentials and limitations of AI in media, with the development of ethical policies and practices that need to be sustainable.
Works Cited
Jobin, Anna, et al. “The Global Landscape of AI Ethics Guidelines.” Nature Machine Intelligence, vol. 1, no. 9, Sept. 2019, pp. 389–399, www.nature.com/articles/s42256-019-0088-2.
Peters, Dorian, et al. “Responsible AI—Two Frameworks for Ethical Design Practice.” IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society, vol. 1, no. 1, Mar. 2020, pp. 34–47, https://doi.org/10.1109/tts.2020.2974991.
Yang, Kai‐Cheng, et al. “Arming the Public with Artificial Intelligence to Counter Social Bots.” Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, vol. 1, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 48–61, https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.115.
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