A quick example of how a free AI program can make something ridiculous look like a religious oil painting. The prompt? “Jesus Christ Rides A Unicorn.” (And, yes, based on the background here, apparently there is a unicorn for you in heaven, if you behave yourself…)

THE LEAD: The White House recently handed down its first set of government-wide policies meant to keep artificial intelligence from ruining everything, while still allowing us all to enjoy its true, helpful greatness:

The White House on Thursday morning released its first government-wide policy aimed at mitigating the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), requiring agencies to take further action to report the use of AI and address risks the technology may pose.

Federal agencies will be required to designate a chief AI officer, report how they use AI and add safeguards as part of the White House memo.

The policies include a requirement that governmental offices list what they use AI for, how important it is and to what degree those uses create “safety-impacting and rights-impacting” risks. It is completely unclear if these regulations will do anything, helpful OR harmful, as we continue to muddle through life with AI programs.

ISSUES WITH AI: You can’t throw a rock at anything these days without it likely hitting something to do with AI. Or maybe even something generated with AI.

As is the case with most technological advances, the early days of generative AI are becoming an insane wild west, in which their appear to be no limits to what people can do with it. As the law tries to catch up and corral this chaos, a lot of things are happening in the public regarding that people have trouble coming to grips with.

• Catherine, Princess of Wales, was out of the public eye, leading to wild speculation as to what happened to her. In an attempt to quell the concerns, the Royal Family released a family photo, which was later determined to be an AI concoction. She then filmed a video spot, in which she revealed she was dealing with a cancer diagnosis. Naturally, this is now under AI suspicion.
• Photos that show former President Trump and President Biden having some “dude time” together have been circulating, leading to some programs blocking the option of these kinds of pictures in the future. In another such story, AI images of Trump hanging out with a group of Black people were used to target Black voters.
• As is always the case with new technology, nudity and porn are in the mix here as well. The Washington Post did a big story about the fears porn stars have regarding AI’s ability to generate…um… superior (?) naked stuff for people to… y’know….  In addition, an app named “Perky AI” was banned after it ran ads showing how its software could be used to “undress” a photo of Jenna Ortega, taken when she was 16.
• The situation has become even worse for non-famous folks, as schools are now grappling with AI being used to create nude deep-fake photos of kids and teachers. That’s right: Some kid at your school could grab one of your photos from a social media post and do something sexually disgusting with it for their own gratification without your knowledge. As a parent, that terrifies me. As the ugliest bald Wookie in Wisconsin, I feel relatively safe.

SO WHY NOT BAN IT? The AI genie is already out of the bottle, so a ban is unlikely to work, even if we wanted to do so. As experts in the field note, not only has AI been around for a long time, but we have gotten used to what it can do for us:

• It automates tasks: If you like the idea of having a spellchecker, a digital calculator and a computer program that can build lines of code in a hurry, you want to keep AI around for a while. The artificial intelligence model is basically one in which machines do things that were once only thought of as being capable in the human mind. A full ban removes all that and trying to draw a specific line between important function and disgusting crap isn’t easy.
• It personalizes content: The whole reason you get what you want online and why those “suggested purchases” actually are things you’d buy comes down to AI. The systems get to “know us” and then find ways of matching us with other things we might like. (In writing that sentence, I’m both amazed and profoundly creeped out…) Who you connect with online, what suggestions you get for places to eat and what cute puppies are available for adoption in your area often comes down to AI’s understanding of you.
• It expands our knowledge: AI can do things we can only imagine, which gives us the chance to figure out all sorts of answers to problems that were once beyond our reach. Sure, medical advances and such might be a bit further away even with AI, but people in the field of electrical work are already seeing amazing opportunities.

These and other opportunities are on the horizon, so long as we can get people to stop making nude photos of each other for a few minutes and do something useful with this tech.

DISCUSSION STARTER: How aware are you of what generative AI can do? Have you experimented with any of the image creators or text creators out there? What has your experience been, in terms of quality and outcomes?

What kinds of limits do you think are necessary for people to co-exist with AI content? How would you go about enforcing them within the confines of the laws of the land as they stand now?