Artificial generative intelligence risks a return to cultural colonialism

The explosive rise in the popularity of AI chatbots has brought us to a pivotal moment that will have lasting effects on our collective worldview. ChatGPT is now the fastest-growing app in history, with over 100 million users and over 10 million queries a day. Fortune 500 companies are adopting it without consideration of future implications, creating a flywheel effect that multiplies its reach through the companies that adopt the technology.

Generative AI can have unintended consequences, and one of the most significant is the power it bestows upon the culture that creates it. The unprecedented popularity of ChatGPT has ironically rendered OpenAI a for-profit, closed-source company with tighter control over ChatGPT and opaque details regarding its learning approach, as evidenced by the recent release of ChatGPT-4. As this technology proliferates, so does its ability to propagate misinformation with alarming confidence. Left unchecked, its implicit biases pose a risk of undoing decades of progress toward a diverse and multicultural society.