Are we robotising humans and humanising robots?

By Nur Lana Zahra binti Mohd Farit

In this modern technological world, I can’t bear to dwell in the dilemma of Artificial Intelligence, knowingly as AI, whether it’s for the greater good or greatery bad for humanity’s future.

Remember that one distorted AI generated video of Will Smith eating spaghetti in 2023? It amused everyone and very much assured us that AI will never be up to par with human intelligence. Fast-forward to 2026, AI is heavily used in industries, sparking political controversies and revolting as one of the main world problems. And umm.. how’s the Will Smith video doing now? As clear as day, the anatomy is mimicked perfectly and no lagging pixels are seen.

Let’s dive deep into this highly debatable topic.

My concerns regarding the usage of AI:

AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini AI and Claude adapt well in education by creating innovative content to help students, assist in problem solving and making learning highly accessible. However, I certainly have my doubts on how we use it.

“Yay! I’ve finished writing my 500 word essay, I can sleep well tonight.” This would be the common inner monologue of most students, who often feel burdened by writing a lengthy essay independently. But, doesn’t the guilt eat you alive sometimes? Copying word by word of a written piece, created by a chat bot rather than just trying to brainstorm for 5 minutes?

To me, situations like this — such as plagiarism, diminishes our cognitive thinking, writing creativity and comprehension. I’m even writing this article, all by myself, challenging how far I can write my thoughts on such a topic, without the assistance of Artificial Intelligence.

When we discover how easily accessible AI is, we accustom ourselves to depend on it. Creating artistic content becomes a chore, writing documents feels like a task and decision making gets tougher. This gets complicated when it lowers our confidence and self-esteem in our own raw thinking skills, where we think AI knows better.

Yes, it is undeniable how AI can eliminate mistakes and refine our work to make it 101% perfect, but doesn’t that undermine what makes us human? Making mistakes is a part of experience, which emerges as one of the roots of knowledge. No, Sir Isaac Newton didn’t formulate his gravitational theory in one night when that apple fell on him, nor did Marie Curie when she pioneered the study of radioactivity. We analyse, we experiment, we execute. A blunder? We learn, we reanalyse and execute it again. It’s what we humans do best, learning.

I mean, who do you think invented Artificial Intelligence? A human being of course. Nothing else is compatible with man’s brain.

However, this intelligence of us, may backlash our society —- and it’s already happening before we know it.

Man’s Mind is His Own Enemy; The Dystopian World of AI

“Now I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.” Everyone knows this line, by the infamous physicist Robert Oppenheimer, expressing his wretched regret after leading the U.S. effort on the atomic bomb. Coincidentally, two out of the “Godfathers of AI” had the selfsame guilt of their life’s work, with one of them even paraphrasing Oppenheimer himself.

“Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now,” “Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary.” Geoffrey Hinton worried. His immediate concerns were if AI would ever complement human workers, upending the job market. Moreover, he spoke his anxiety whether the internet would soon be flooded with fake images, videos and texts, to the point “no one will know what’s real anymore”.

Now, would you believe me if I told you these statements made by Dr. Hinton was 3 years ago? A little while after ChatGPT and Gemini AI were launched? Let me bring you back to the present day. Grok spiralling on the internet and causing major concerns on the world government due to exploitation of deepfakes and breaching of the privacy of people’s figures, the increment of water usage thus affecting areas that crucially need it due to AI generated responses, the displacement of human employment, the lack of creativity and inspiration amongst society. Did Hinton just predict the present day?

Food for thought

We’re losing our own complexion and character, and losing it very badly to these neural thinking systems. They think for us as if we can’t think for ourselves and we all should collectively come to a realisation that this issue needs to be mitigated before it would be the cause our society concludes. Food for thought, anyone?