Day by day, artificial intelligence is becoming a larger part of people’s lives. But recently, artificial intelligence is making a surge in the form of advertising. While there has always been personalized advertising, AI is making ads more individualized and harder to ignore.
“AI-driven ads are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do — advertise and draw you in,” computer science teacher Ivann Grande said. “This has been true for as long as ads have existed… the imagination and what makes the ad unique gets watered down when AI is introduced. They all look the same and function in the same way.”
As with many things AI related, things are changing at an increasingly rapid rate, so it is difficult to picture what the landscape will look like a couple of months or years from now.
“AI can help think of ways to utilize (ad) data in ways that some companies might not have thought of,” Grande said. “This can all be avoided with the rule of not creating social media accounts or clicking on ads, accidentally or not.”
With this new way of advertising, concerns about privacy have been voiced by adults and students alike.
“It’s crazy how advanced AI is getting,” sophomore Nicholas Petrikas said. “It really makes you wonder how much they know about you. It also makes you stop and realize that the next time you see an advertisement, it was likely put in front of you by AI.”
Along with privacy, the impact on attention spans is clear. Many students understand the risks but remain hooked on apps for longer than they would like.
“I open my phone to watch one video, and suddenly it’s been an hour,” Petrikas said. “It feels like the app already knows what will keep me watching, even when I don’t want to.”
Grande believes that students need to be educated on what is happening in order to break the endless cycle. As a warning to students and faculty across the school, he emphasizes the importance of staying informed.
“We need to keep covering and updating our lessons on digital citizenship,” Grande said. “Teachers have to stay informed so students can be informed too.”
