Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly common. It is here and like it or not it’s not going anywhere. AI tools are personalizing everyone’s experience with how people get recommendations, their daily news, or interact with their online searches and entertainment. It’s growing presence has sparked a lot of debate. Both supporters and critics alike raise meaningful points and the conversation continues to evolve.
Here are several areas of concerns to consider:
- Learning and comprehension: Using AI to quickly understand difficult passages, translate material, and generate summaries can be a powerful aid but critics think it will create dependency. Will AI reduce reading skills or critical thinking when readers no longer wrestle with original text themselves? Will students even write their own essays? There are many tools being designed to identify the use of AI in student papers but as AI gets better and better, how will educators deal with the use of AI?
- Accuracy and trust: You may have already noticed the onslaught of fake news being generated by AI.
- If you’ve been watching the trends, you’ll notice how much harder it is getting to identify AI from real stories.
- One of the most concerning aspects is that if AI doesn’t have the answer it often makes things up.
- Although AI can scan many online sources at once and bring back a wealth of information quicker than a search engine, it is important to use your own judgement and verify the information with other sources.
- The most contentious argument against AI for writers, is copyright and author rights.
- Some writers and publishers are concerned about the training of large language models and the use of works without their permission.
- Licensing models and legal frameworks attempt to clarify compensation and consent but enforcement is a concern.
- Writers who avoid allowing AI to use their material may find themselves left behind as more and more readers use AI to find their next book.
- Privacy is another topic in the discussion.
- AI reading tools collect user inputs and usage patterns to improve performance. Some readers welcome the personalization, while others prefer strict limits on data collection and storage.
- The bots are on steroids… consideration the benefits and repercussions is important.
The role of technology in the human reading process creates a broader cultural question. Enthusiasts see AI as a modern reading companion– dynamic dictionary, a tutor, and a librarian combined. Skeptics worry that too much mediation between reader and the text could change the nature of the reading experience to the detriment of society itself.
As with any new technology, AI in reading brings both opportunity and uncertainty. The discussion is not settled and will likely shape how these tools change the future of reading and writing.