Artificial intelligence can "build a wall around closed systems", strengthen existing corporate interests and prevent Web3 from being fully realized. This opinion was expressed by experts in a conversation with Cointelegraph.
"Our big concern now, when we talk about an open network, is that if we don't have a credible, irreversibly open environment for AI development, then an open network may never become a reality," said Chris Donovan, chief operating officer of the Near Foundation.Ilya Polosukhin, co-founder and CEO of the Near Foundation, also sees a risk in AI for open systems.
"Most AI developments take place within the framework of really large corporations, which have a very clear incentive to continue generating more profit for the company. This [AI] has very antagonistic goals towards the people who use it because Google or Facebook can't find another billion users. Therefore, they need to increase revenue per user, and for this they need to get them to spend more time on the product," he said.In such a scenario, large corporations use AI to "drive users into corporate silos," Cointelegraph notes.
Closed doors of corporations
Polosukhin added that at some point there may come a situation when a user "is sitting in an operating system or a social network and he literally has no other way out, he won't even have a browser."
As an example, he cited Microsoft, a major participant in the AI race, which in 2001 faced an antitrust lawsuit due to an attempt to monopolize the web browser market. The company then agreed to make adjustments to business practices.
On June 25, 2024, the EU accused the corporation of unethical actions related to the integration of the Teams application with Office. The regulator believes that this gave the company an advantage over competitors.
Polosukhin believes that AI has great potential to manipulate its users and create a "perfect storm of anti-competition."
"You will not be able to get away from such a system and will think that this is exactly what you want," he said.Social media and lack of choice
Donovan drew attention to the social media sector as one of the threats.
"These platforms do not encourage good behavior or high-quality information. They stimulate attention to the screen, which, in my opinion, is a very negative paradigm. I think that if AI is applied in this paradigm, it will only strengthen and exacerbate the problems — and they are actually very fundamental. These are things like political polarization, erosion of trust in institutions, and disinformation. All these things are destroying our society on a global level," said the operating director of the Near Foundation.Polosukhin drew attention to the fact that large technology platforms will want to provide more information directly, rather than redirect it to third-party sources. According to him, this weakens the pluralism and independence of the media.
"You will not leave Google. You won't go to the smaller pages. You will no longer bring them income. All publications will have less and less traffic from Google," he added.Recall that Elon Musk called artificial intelligence his main fear.
Read about how to recognize AI manipulations on the Internet on Forklog.
https://forklog.com/exclusive/ai/fejki-dipfejki-i-chat-boty-kak-raspoznat-ii-manipulyatsii-v-internete