List of personal stories of AI impact

The softer side of AI risk. We can think about societal-scale impact (Will generative AI cause catastrophic economic dislocation?), but it’s important to stay grounded in the individual.

Do you have a good story for my list? Please share!

Job displacement

• I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney over night. Redditor: “I am not an artist anymore… all I do is prompting… the reason I went to be a 3D artist in the first place is gone.”
• “It happened to me today” - Redditor: "I literally lost my biggest and best client to ChatGPT today. This client is my main source of income, he’s a marketer who outsources the majority of his copy and content writing to me. … I just signed up for Doordash as a driver.”
• “I wish GPT4 had never happened” - a friend in India has a job as an annotator of biotech papers; author was able to reproduce their work in a fraction of the time with GPT-4; fears they will lose their job. (via Michael Nielsen
• “proceeded to make me an offer that was a full $25,000 less than what I asked for the position” - 3D animator discussing a negotiation for a project

Misuse

• https://nypost.com/2023/04/12/ai-clones-teen-girls-voice-in-1m-kidnapping-scam/ a scammer (purportedly) generated audio of a woman’s sobbing daughter asking for help, demanded a ransom
• https://twitter.com/V0RESY0U/status/1652470463015034881 a troll (purportedly) rapidly generates nude photos of TikTok influencer from clothed images

Accident / unintended effects

• ‘He Would Still Be Here’: Man Dies by Suicide After Talking with AI Chatbot, Widow Says (purportedly: troubled Belgian father/husband becomes isolated from friends/family, talking to chatbot for weeks, ultimately convinced to commit suicide; original reporting by La Libre, in French)