‘What is something that has been ruined by AI and will never recover?’ – 23 phenomenons lost forever to machine learning

Whether you think think is AI a benign and handy tool for performing menial tasks or see it as the first sign of the digital hellscape future we are destined to inhabit, there’s no doubt it’s already part of our lives and isn’t going anywhere.

They seem to be coming down on the latter side on the AskReddit page, after user StrawHat_Froggy posed this question:

‘What is something that has been ruined by AI and will never recover?’

And lots of people had examples of the things they think have already been destroyed by machine learning.

1.

‘My colleagues’ ability to write and send an email by themselves.’
–CloakAndKeyGames

2.

‘Search Engine Results.’
–Ruminations0

3.

‘Photographic evidence. We can no longer trust any image or video to be real.’
-PoolExtension5517

4.

‘In court I think there’s ways to verify. But yeah as far as public opinion goes it’s done.’
–footwith4toes

5.

‘The services a person could work for writing articles for pay. Two years ago I was making a good $500 a month doing this. Then some writing app was introduced, and the number of jobs I had to choose from dropped from about 80-100 a day to nothing in three weeks. None of the other services were accepting new writers, so I assume this hit them too.
–Useless890

6.

‘Affects translators, too. My town had a firm of about a dozen translators who lost their jobs due to AI. A couple got new jobs verifying AI translations. The irony.’
–ThinkbigShrinktofit

7.

‘It’s already ruined a lot of scientific papers, as well as schools. Apparently administrations use software AI to scan for AI generated content and it’s less than like 20% effective.’
–betterthanamaster

8.

‘Trust. There used to be a saying ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’. Now we can see it – and still not believe it.’
–mslabrat01

9.

‘People. The people using AI to generate things like assignments, documents etc to totally avoid learning content, and then not even reading it or knowing that what’s been created is a digital turd. We have people like this out in the world now who on their own have the functional capacity of an over-ripe banana.’
–CreepyValuable

10.

‘Interestingly, sewing patterns. Not sure if the ‘will never recover’ thing is true, but it’s a huge issue.

‘There are more and more sewing patterns out there that have basically fake instructions and cutting directions, and an AI generated picture of the finished garment. If you know what to look out for they’re not hard to spot (at least currently) but many don’t know this scam exists and just buy some pattern off Etsy. To make a sewing pattern takes a lot of knowledge and testing; and there are always new clothing trends that people want to sew for themselves; so you can see how profitable this could be.

‘The only solution is to buy only from trusted sewing pattern manufacturers, and if you buy from more indie sources, check the picture on the pattern and the reviews very carefully.’
–Frillybits

11.

‘Democracy. Propaganda can be made so realistic it will be almost impossible to tell what’s true and what’s fiction. All sides will be able to point to their own evidence and ‘truth’.’
–DrTenochtitlan

12.

‘Porn deepfakes seem like a genie that’s not going back into the bottle.’
–Dangerous-Coach-1999