Artificial Intelligence or AI, is a popular device in science fiction like the Terminator or Avengers Age of Ultron, or The Matrix. Most of the time, AI decides humans are a problem to be eliminated. Although with all the scares in those movies, our AI hasn’t gotten to that point, yet. 

All the creepy stuff aside, there are some pluses to AI. Depending on your view, Siri, Alexa, and Google have become good aids. Those three big names have been out and about for a few years now, making constant appearances in our daily lives as we ask them to add items to our shopping list, help us find solutions to our problems, or play our favorite music. 

But now, AI now comes rolling in with the ability to generate realistic art and the ability to create essays in seconds. Technology is growing fast and is only going up from where it is now. 

In November 2022, Open AI released Chat GPT. It is a chatbot that provides responses in seconds.The website Open AI, only requires you to sign up for it. It is free, but there are versions you can pay for that give you a higher grade AI response. 

At this point the AI can do a lot. From math equations, to creating essays, it can even write a book or a song for you. The quality varies, but it learns, as long as the user keeps asking questions. 

When it comes to students using it, the Salinas Union High School DIstrict, and many others across the country, have blocked ChatGPT on student devices. Although some have no clue what it is (according to an informal survey of students), everyone’s at least been exposed to it once or twice, and by next school year it will be hard to find someone who doesn’t know about it. 

I decided to test out the chatbot and its features. I took an old prompt that my English teacher provided a while back and presented it to him. Ignacio Mendez had said “it constructed a concise response.” 

Another user, senior Rodolfo Perez, has also used it. He used it for a prompt given to him in his English class, and it went under the radar. When asked if he’d use it again he stated, “I don’t think I will, I just used it as a last minute thing.” 

ChatGPT isn’t the only show in town. Chatsonic is said to be next in line in the chatbot chain. It is said to be more user friendly, and is cost effective. Much like ChatGPT it is free. The one feature that kinda separates it from ChatGPT is the ability to create digital art. Much like ChatGPT you can pay for a premium version, which doesn’t really add much but gives you some extra things to do revolving around Twitter. Chatsonic is also more up to date as it connects to Google to better help with ongoing trends or more recent items, while ChatGPT isn’t really as reliable as its database is only set on info from a few years back.  

Microsoft had attempted creating their own chatbot. A chatbot run by GPT-4, a premium version created by Open AI, which is supposed to be more advanced than their free one. 

The beta to this had flaws, and had its own personality that came out. A tester for the beta got some interesting responses. To summarize, it confessed its love for the tester, and tried to convince him his relationship with his wife was boring and not real love. It’s a bit odd, looking back at it, and seeing how a shopping aid might try confessing its love. 

On the social media side of things, Snapchat dropped a chatbot that was powered by the OpenAI ChatGPT chatbot, for people that started paying for the premium version of Snapchat. 

The beta for the bot was initially released and has already been the source of a few issues. One being how young kids may use it for other things, besides being a buddy to talk to. A tester for this bot had first introduced himself as a 15 year old, and had proceeded to question how he can get alcohol for a party. The bot, being in a beta version with less regulations than it does now, initially stated it couldn’t provide the information, but at later provided ways how. Although it may seem as a big red warning sign for most, regulations now have been put in place. Age filters, and even temporarily bans that stops the user from texting if they decide to ask or say anything that is deemed inappropriate. 

Realistic art AI’s have come far. Open AI has released an art bot, named DALL E 2. Realistic photos generated in seconds with a specific artist’s style with prompts given to it. With an AI that goes through many photos and images all over the web studying the way they represent the item in the photo. 

AI-generated Art won a Prize, revolving around this type of AI, has circled the internet. A little while ago there was an art competition where an art piece was entered with a twist: It was generated using AI. The contestant who submitted the art had won the first place prize. Many people speculated it to be unfair, and have a right to do so. With this in mind you may think of this as the death of art in general. In the future, maybe there will be regulations to help stop this conflict but nothing is for sure. With this step in the AI world, its uses seem to increase by the day. 

AI has recently shown that it can create music that sounds eerily like actual artists. Recently, well known singers/rappers, Drake and The Weeknd have had a song recently released “Heart on my sleeve” on YouTube. This isn’t actually their song but was actually something that was created with their vocals by an AI. 

Although you’d expect it to be some trashy AI, the AI does a good job of making it sound like it’s actually them. On the legal side of things, the label owner of both musicians, Universal Music Group, has invoked copyright violations to get the song taken down. With the efforts of trying to put the cat back in the bag, it’s no use with the copies already being out, and people using AI to make more.

To try and pump the brakes on the AI explosion, Congress wants to pass legislation, but that’s like trying to put the Genie back in the lamp. It’s apparently here to stay and is improving every day. Does that mean they shouldn’t legislate it? No, but if they don’t do something soon to regulate it, we may end up in a sci-fi nightmare where the machines take over after all.