With the rise of Artificial Intelligence in society, it can be difficult to understand what the future holds.
AI has grown in popularity in 2024 with platforms like ChatGPT and even “Snapchat AI.” This growth reveals challenges and advancements in how it operates, especially within the current job market. AI has been beneficial for many students at South, though. However, it has been connected to cheating, but Helena Moore ’25 believes there can be positive uses for it.
“It [AI] can really help you with just basic studying, or correcting something, or even confirming an answer that you’ve gotten,” Moore said.
Because of AI being improved and studied everyday, students are starting to become concerned about what the “limit” is for technology. Stella Fry ’26 said although it is just technology, it attempts to be a real person, sometimes with emotion even.
“I feel like the technology could get so advanced to the point where humans can’t control it anymore,” Fry said. “It could start taking over things that are meant for humans, and get way more advanced than it would ever need to be.”
For now, AI is seemingly keeping to a minimal role in the workplace, but it is unclear how it will progress. Joseph Guthat ’26 says that most of the AI is in customer service, but for more advanced questions within that field, humans are used.
“It’s still relatively new, so I feel like I don’t know exactly how trustworthy it is,” Guthat said.
With the possibility of AI taking over the job market, Fry said it could start taking over things meant for humans, which can lead to higher unemployment rates.
“I think that it’s good in a sense that AI can get really smart, and it’s also technology,” Fry said. “So there is less chance for it to mess up and have mistakes, because there’s no human error.”
For many jobs, like being a doctor, interactions with the patient are crucial. Without this, it can become more challenging to solve problems and assist with a patient’s needs. Moore said in many cases face-to-face interactions can make the job easier.
“If I was looking into a job that could potentially be replaced by some type of AI, it [job loss] would definitely worry me, and maybe it wouldn’t even happen in my lifetime,” Moore said. “But knowing that that’s something that could work to that eventually is a little unsettling for me to think of.”
