In the past few years, there has been a sudden emergence of AI technology. Of course, there have been movies and stories of robots taking over and becoming evil, but with the modern AI programs that we have now, people have been taking it more seriously and have been genuinely concerned. Things like ChatGPT, OpenAI, Sora, SnapChat AI, and Meta AI have become very advanced and have had a lot of influence in the past couple of years. With the rise of advanced AI also comes concerns. There have been a lot of conversation about how AI might take over jobs and careers that humans aren’t needed for anymore.

Jobs in tech like coders, programmers, research analysts, and software engineers are all at risk of being replaced by AI. AI is good at calculating things very quickly and efficiently. Mark Muro, who has researched AI’s impact on the American workforce at the Brookings Institute, says, “What took a team of researchers might only take some of them.” One AI program can do what a team of people can do. Even OpenAI, a pioneer in modern AI, has said that they are considering replacing their own software engineers with their AI. Although there has been a lot of speculation about AI replacing jobs like this, some people just think that AI will be an enhancement rather than a replacement.

Another topic of discussion around AI replacement is media jobs like journalism, advertising, and editorial jobs. ChatGPT has already proven that it can write very realistic and well written articles and stories. You can give it a very detailed prompt and it can write you an essay if you ask. Students have already taken advantage of this feature, and have used it to cheat on assignments. Although there are AI detectors, not all of them work. You can tell ChatGPT to write an essay with a very specific prompt, and you can even tell it to write it at a certain grade level. Journalists could use this to write articles, websites, or papers. Economist Paul Krugman said in a New York Times op-ed published in December 2022 that ChatGPT may be able to do tasks like reporting and writing “more efficiently than humans.”

With the release of ChatGPT in 2022 came talk about how AI can easily mimic and replace musicians and artists. In April of 2023, a creator called Ghostwriter released the song “Heart on my Sleeve” which had AI mimicking rappers Drake and The Weeknd. The song quickly went viral, and was submitted for a Grammy. People all over the internet could not believe that it was completely AI, and the 2 rappers had no part in the song. This has led people to worry about the effects that AI can have on music. Another huge topic of discussion around AI is the art that it can create. You can tell an AI program any prompt for a picture and it will create it. This has been used for graphic design, advertising posters, and recreations of real art. This has led to a lot of controversy in the art community because artists feel that they could be replaced or forgotten in the near future. Art is one of the biggest parts of modern AI, and although it isn’t perfect, it definitely is realistic.

The controversy around AI art has many parts to it. One concern artists have is that when you tell an AI program to create a piece of art, it cannot completely create an original artwork. It splices pieces from all around the internet together. This raises the question of does AI have an ethical way of collecting data for the “art” it makes? The topic of copyright laws has come up with AI art, since nobody technically owns it or created it. Another big concern about art created by AI is how someone can easily recreate and copy someone else’s artwork for free, and with no repercussions. Someone who created a great piece of art can have their work stolen and sold for half the price, and they can’t do anything about it. AI art also comes with the devaluation of human artwork. Why would anyone care about a piece that took an artist months to complete and master, when an AI program can recreate it in seconds?

Although there have been many fears and concerns about the recent emergence of advanced AI technology, many people still think that humans cannot be replaced in some fields. Lots of blue collar jobs require humans for them to be carried out. However, white collar jobs have a very high chance of being changed by the new AI revolution.