From images of the pope wearing a white puffed jacket worth thousands of dollars, to reviving dead celebrities into wild images, Ai has begun to become the king of the internet. But not only that, it has become more and more prominent in workspaces, and pictures becoming more realistic. Thus, fake news has begun to become more prominent than ever. Ai is now being used in news and journalism. In an article made by “Generating Change made by Journalism AI”, they ran a global survey about what news organizations and how many of them are using artificial intelligence. A reported 85% have stated that they have, 14% being unclear, and 1% stating they have not, and with 80% of them stating that they believe news is going to have more applications of AI in the future.

“The instant we start messing with photographs themselves, it’s no longer true because news is about documentary photography. It should be realistic to what we actually experienced. We shouldn’t manipulate or generate photographs more than we need to make them fit and look pretty,” yearbook teacher Micheal Witman, said about his opinion on Ai photography.

But with these kinds of changes happening amongst the news, it’s beginning to become harder and harder to tell what’s real and what’s fake. In a post on reddit created by Pablo Xavier, a 31 year old construction worker, he had created a fake image of the pope in a Valencia puffer coat. The image had been taken through the internet, sailing across the seas of social media like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. It was created in Mid Journey, and it’s not the first time these images have been created to make people either laugh, post about, or save for their own personal use.

Because of this manipulation with Ai, internet freedom is beginning to be stripped away. In the article, The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence, written by Allie Funk, Adrian Shabaz, and Kain Vesteinnson, it was revealed that 29 countries’ conditions for human rights on the internet had deteriorated.

For the past nine years, China continues to have worse internet human rights conditions. Myanmar is coming close to surpassing it, with Iran having the largest decline and the Philippines being a close second, along with Belarus, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. On top of this, 41 countries have begun to censor topics like politics, religion, or social activities that revolve around content.

I’m willing to bet all of my money that Ai photography will never overtake real photography. It takes a creative mind to give a prompt for photos. You can’t have AI at your wedding, you can’t have AI at your birthday party. You need a person[/pullquote]

“I’m willing to bet all of my money that Ai photography will never overtake real photography. It takes a creative mind to give a prompt for photos. You can’t have AI at your wedding, you can’t have AI at your birthday party. You need a person,” student photographer Rogelio Molina said about Ai taking over photography.

However, some news rooms and photographers are already using Ai in more helpful ways rather than harmful ones. In an article called “How Will Artificial Intelligence Change Journalism” produced by Intelligencer and written by John Herrman, they had listed some of the ways the Ai is already helping the news workplace.

“Google’s “Genesis” story-generation tool represents a fuller expression of this approach. As a piece of software that will attempt to synthesize chosen and at least theoretically novel information into a news-like form, it promises to replace or streamline an important step in the production of stories.”

AI as a source of photography and news is a messy idea, one of which with multiple contradictions of assistance and take over. However, if taken with time and patience, it could serve as a useful tool, but still with its many dangers.

Thanks to AI, your perfect friend may be just one click away. With a customizable cartoon appearance and bubbly personality, Snapchat’s “My AI” and other chat bots are always available to talk, always kind, always focused entirely on you. And, on the surface, they seem like a cure for lonely teens with no one to talk to- especially considering that Gen Z has been reported to be the loneliest generation by far by a variety of news outlets such as Forbes, USA Today, and more.

Critics and PRHS students seem to think however, that the situation isn’t quite that simple, and these connections to AI we’re forming are not only fake, but harmful.

With the advent of more chatbots and ways to “fake” connections, many, including 85.7% of the PRHS student population surveyed, worry about our generation’s future relationships, privacy, and wonder about the necessity of online chatbots.

The “My AI” feature on Snapchat was released in February 2023 for premium users, and became available to all 750 million users in April of the same year. The chatbot is placed on the top of your list of friends, and cannot be deleted.

When asked “What is your purpose?”, it responded that it was here to be a “virtual friend.”

When asked “Do you care about me?”, it responded “Of course, I care about you. Even though we’re chatting virtually, I still want to be a good friend to you. Is there something specific you’d like to talk about with me? I’m always here to listen and chat with you.”

“It’s creepy,” Kinleigh Morud, freshman, said. “It feels like its trying to substitute real friends or relationships… I think that’s bad.”

People online were similarly quick to point out the “creepy” side of the AI, and 60% of students believe AI “friends” are always weird, and 85.7% worry about how AI’s invasion of privacy. AI’s like Snapchat’s are feedback based, and companies use chats, no matter how private, to better train the AI model.

“It’s interesting to see people using AI as more than just a tool.” senior Gabby Silvia said, “I could see using it as a social thing could lead to people having limited social skills and emotional intelligence, which would inevitably be detrimental to them.”

And the Snapchat AI isn’t an isolated Another popular AI chatbots include “character.ai”, where users can chat with almost anyone, from popular anime characters to real life historical figures. In these chats, the sky is the limit, you can romance these bots, fight with them, debate them, anything.

And, with the help of AI, limitless creation and connection doesn’t stop with text. AI-generated videos of chatbot “friends” already exist, such as Billie released by Meta that serve similar purposes to the Snapchat AI.

But image creation has a much darker side in relation to connection, particularly, romantic or sexual connection- or, what people will do when they lack them.

Recently, explicit images of Taylor Swift were spread on X, formerly Twitter, reportedly gaining over 40 million views in the few hours they were up before being taken down by the platform. And with this reality comes the unsettling realization that, as technology develops, these attacks may not be isolated to famous people. A girl in your math class, a local politician- if there’s a photo, AI will find a way.

“It’s really uncomfortable and such a huge violation of privacy,” Jordan Hammond, junior and Taylor Swift fan, said. “It’s scary to know that anyone could use with so much power to create such realistic things.”

Action is being taken politically via a bill in Congress titled the “No Artificial Intelligence Fake Replicas And Unauthorized Duplications (No AI FRAUD) Act” to protect individuals from defamation, as many current laws don’t entirely address the issue of AI generated online sexual abuse.