When a “Hack” has Consequences

During my student years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there was a generous amount of recreation referred to as “hacking.” Hacks were nothing more than pranks that usually involved a twist grounded on some technology infrastructure. More often than not, that infrastructure involved computer software, often based on artificial intelligence. Since those days are now half a century ago, most hacks covered a gamut between moderately amusing and annoying.

Freelance journalist Samantha Smith, whose image on X was altered (from the BBC article being discussed)

These days, that gamut has widened, particularly on the annoying side. This morning I read a BBC article filed by Technology Reporter Laura Cress with the headline “Woman felt 'dehumanised' after Musk's Grok AI used to digitally remove her clothes.” My guess is that there are any number of computer graphics tools that can enable such an image transformation. For all I know, some of them have been demonstrated at technical conferences (which I no longer attend, since my days of presenting research results of my own have now passed).

There is a tendency to regard any new software capability as progress. How that software is used does not “enter into the equation.” However, while an algorithm for more efficient search is a software achievement, there is a “social dimension” where images are concerned, particularly when they are images of the “real world,” rather than some elaborate abstraction. In my student days little attention was given to whether or not a “hack” involved that “social dimension;” but, as was clear from that BBC article, those creating imaginative new software need to be more aware of “social consequences.”

One can only wonder if any of the software training programs include the examination of how any invention has, out of necessity, a “social dimension.” That BBC article suggests that, for the most part, that social dimension is overlooked. Sadly, I do not expect that the article will have any impact on updating those training programs. As usual, entropy rules!