The idea that robots would ever affect humans and their daily lives used to be a delusional idea only seen in science fiction movies, but is this far off idea becoming a reality?
Although the idea of artificial intelligence, or AI, has been explored for decades, only in recent years has AI exploded in popularity. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly more common, it begs the question: how far is too far? Is it only a matter of time until we become fully reliant on AI for fast, and sometimes false, information?
The origins of AI can be traced back to the 1950s in programs such as the Logic Theorist. This program used AI to help solve mathematical problems, mimicking human problem-solving and reasoning.
Although AI’s original purpose was to test how machines can use human intelligence to solve problems and carry out certain tasks, it is rapidly evolving. The technology is becoming increasingly more common, complex, and difficult to detect. This is a problem because although AI can be helpful in gathering fast information or making fun videos, it has a history of giving false or biased information.
The more people rely on AI, the harder it becomes to determine whether the information they receive is unbiased and accurate. AI is also being implemented in nearly all social media platforms, including major ones like Instagram, Facebook, X and LinkedIn. It is used to observe user behavior, and it takes this information to create personalized feeds within an algorithm that makes it harder for users to click away.
AI is also rapidly replacing creative works, replacing human ingenuity with fast poor-quality mimics. Rather than humans creating unique and informative videos, upon opening social media, now it is easy to get flooded with unoriginal quickly made AI content. Not only does this cause annoyance, these videos have become so common that it can be hard to tell what media is real and what is fake.
This development poses a serious danger, as AI can be used to spread false information or situations, making it seem as though people have said or done things that they never did. In addition to threatening people’s reputation, recent studies have shown that future models of AI may actually pose a threat to people’s lives.
A study done in the summer of 2025 by Anthropic, a developing AI company, tested 16 different models of AI from multiple developers. Many of these models would disobey their given commands, and, in some cases, put humans in harm’s way in order to avoid being shut down.
In one of the experiments, several AIs were put in a fictional situation where they had direct commands to work towards certain minor business goals. These programs had access to various business emails, and had the ability to send emails.
After the models discovered that an employee was involved in an affair, and that that same employee planned to shut down the AI, various AI models resorted to black-mailing the employee, threatening to release information about their affair if they proceeded with the plan to shut down the AI.
If artificial intelligence is evolving fast enough to go from being a helpful assistant for mathematical calculations, to directly disobeying orders from the people who created it, who’s to say how much longer it will be until the inevitable issues caused by AI begin to show their effects?
