With Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing beautiful stories, completing research, and generating digital art, designs & codes at low / zero cost, will humans who perform these tasks be replaced?

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If you are a writer, researcher, journalist, lawyer, artist, photographer, coder or designer who has recently interacted with AI, you should have considered this question. Contrary to the general perspective, the answer to this “existential” question is not complicated. It’s a simple yes.

Yes, humans involved in writing, researching, creating art, and designing will be replaced by Artificial Intelligence. And this is not because AI is inherently superior to humans or because it is readily available and cheap. This is so because of three situations in the world that make it more conducive for AI to replace humans.

This article discusses these three situations in the market today that lay the foundation for AI to replace humans involved in writing, researching, designing and creating Art.

Situation – 1: The way the Search Engine works.

When a consumer searches for something on a Search Engine, the Search Engine sorts out millions of websites that discuss the searched words and present them to the consumer. The page that presents the results is called the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

SERP is a page where competition between businesses takes place. All the website owners compete for the ‘top’ spot in the SERP as that is the spot that is most likely to get the consumer’s attention. However, the search engine only puts a particular website over its competitors if that website is active, i.e., if there is regular activity inside the website and if the content is posted at least 3-4 times a week.

Any business that has an online presence and that wants to build organically knows that posting at least 3 to 4 times a week is a big ask as they require employees (website designers, content creators, writers, editors, etc.) to produce content that sets it apart from the rest of the competitors.

Enter generative AI.

A generative AI can create anything the business wants: stories, content, art, designs, paintings, photos, opinions, codes that help build the website, etc. If this type of AI is used, it erases the hurdle that is present in the form of requiring employees designated for the same task.

In essence, with the way the Search Engine works and the world that AI offers, it won’t be soon before businesses consider cutting their costs in the production process. In this case, website designers, content creators, artists, photographers, and writers are the costs.

Situation 2: The law governing Copyright.

The picture that you see is not an artwork that I have created. I am not that talented. But because I wanted a picture that could convey my idea in the way I would have, had I possessed the skills, I used the AI to create the picture for me. Given this scenario, I put to you a question:

Who owns the copyright over the picture that is presented to you? Is it me who requested the AI to make such a picture? Is it the AI who took the job of creating such a picture? Or is it the company that developed the AI which facilitated the creation?

Similarly, if a screenplay is written by AI and a person who asked the AI to write such a screenplay puts their name as the author over the screenplay – who should ideally have the copyright over it? Is it the AI that created the story or the person who asked the AI to create a specific story or the AI builder who made the AI generate such a story?

The same dilemma exists in almost anything AI does. Who owns the copyright on such output?

The law on copyright is clear. Copyright protects a creator’s (a person’s) expression, not the idea. But in the case of AI, whose expression is it?

Several arguments revolving around this point are put forth. On one end, there are people who argue that the person is the rightful owner of the copyright. For this group, AI, like a thesaurus or Grammarly or suggested designs/words, is nothing but a tool, and the person is the copyright owner for the creation of AI. They also associate this with an employer-employee relationship between a Person and an AI, so the copyright belongs to the person who hired the AI developed by the AI developer.

On the far end, some supporters argue that the copyright, in this case, belongs to the AI & its developers as they are the ones who are essentially creating the output. For them, it’s the developer’s prerogative whether to hold on to the copyright or provide it to the user via the terms of the use. If the developer wants to retain copyright over all the content produced by AI, they can, and if not, they can give such copyright to the person who used the AI.

Then, there is the middle ground, which is about making sure the copyright belongs to those who have contributed significantly to the creation of the product, as the people are entitled to know who they are interacting with. For them, co-owners in the form of a person & AI is the step forward. Some judgements from jurisdictions like the US, India & China, without delving into the issue of whether AI is entitled to copyright or not, support co-authorship.

Scholars worldwide have yet to formally decide on this debate, which is good news for businesses who want to use AI, absorb the copyright to themselves and cut out the middleman & the costs associated with them in the production process.

The middlemen are writers, researchers, coders, designers, artists and photographers.

Situation 3: The Right to Know issue.

The right to know / Right to information has been recognised as a consumer right throughout the various consumer protection laws implemented in different jurisdictions. This consists of information about the product/service (quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of goods) necessary for a consumer to make an informed choice.

In the context of digital products, like articles, designs, codes, photos, etc., this means that consumers have a right to know whose article they are reading, whose perspective they are aligning themselves with, and whose designs and photos they are admiring / sharing, who they are interacting with i.e. A.I. Chatbot / a human customer care representative, etc. This right, as admirable as it is, has two significant problems.

Firstly, there exists no penalty if a business doesn’t reveal the usage of AI. Secondly, there is no software, program, or technology that is 100% reliable and accurate that can detect the use of AI.

Even though platforms like undetectable.ai / sapling / crossplag / originality.ai detect AI usage to the best of their abilities, no assurance exists from their end that says their detection is 100% correct. This leads to a situation where it is extremely difficult to detect the usage of AI in the production process.

This problem is further complicated by a feature embedded in a few AIs: “Humanise it”. Clicking on this button while writing an article / a design would “humanise” any AI-created content, i.e. create content like a human would. Keeping aside the discussion about what it means to “humanise” something, this poses a bigger problem in this discussion: the presence of this feature makes it impossible to detect the usage of AI in the production process.

Given this situation, where there are no legal repercussions associated with it and where there is no way a consumer can possibly know if AI is involved in the process, no possible benefit exists from having the right to know, and businesses can use AI and its services, instead of humans and their services, to attract consumers.

Conclusion:

This is the situation that exists in the market: Businesses benefit by producing quick content; they are NOT required to provide copyright to the AI even when they employ AI; & they don’t have to reveal the usage of AI, despite the consumer’s right to know. This situation only means one thing – using AI-generated content allows a business to fast-track its progress and decrease its costs associated with humans.

Make no mistake, this is a war. A war between AI’s creativity and the Human mind. A war for who will populate the internet and dominate the entire digital space. And in this war, the current situations and systems are inherently against humans expressing their minds.

It is not an extinction-level threat. Humans & Human-created content will continue to have value, but all of us and our ingenuity will have to take a back seat because the car is built in a way that allows AI to drive hands-free.