By Ronica Stromberg
Sruti Das Choudhury, a computer scientist and image analysis expert, has seen how generative artificial intelligence can save people time and effort and even do superior work with its fast creation of videos, images, music and text. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln research associate professor has also seen how generative AI has turned the world into a new type of Wild West . . . with no sheriff in sight.
She is leading an international group of academicians with Amit Kumar Das, head of the GenAI Center of Excellence at the Institute of Engineering and Management in Kolkata, India, to write manuscripts, train students and create societal awareness about visual misinformation. The team wrote a chapter on generative AI, “Toward an Ethical Framework for Generative AI: Balancing Innovation, Privacy, and Accountability,” in the book Designing with Conscience: Ethics for the AI Era, to be published by Nova Science Publishers this year.
“The most important thing that we are trying to communicate is the potential misuse and danger of the new horizon of generative AI,” she said recently. “What are the different application domains that can be impacted, like education, healthcare, cyber security and the entertainment industry? Also, what is the current legal framework and how can it be modified or how can it cope with the new generative AI misuses?”
Most laws around the world predate November 2022, what Das Choudhury identified as the start of the new horizon of generative AI with the release of ChatGPT. She said countries now find themselves with legal loopholes that people are using to create content others could be hurt by, like placing a person’s face and voice on another person’s body in a pornographic film.
With AI tools, people can easily simulate a famous person saying something that they never said. The content creator generates the face, says what they want the face to say and picks the voice of the person they want to mimic.
A case in point is the Baby Trump videos popping up all over the web. The AI-generated videos depict President Donald Trump as a baby doing funny things while cracking jokes. Das Choudhury said this has happened to politicians and other famous people all over the world, including Narendra Damodardas Modi, the prime minister of her homeland of India. While she acknowledged the entertainment value of such GenAI videos, she also pointed out ethical concerns.
“Think about the conversation that we are putting on their faces,” she said. “Are they not defaming them or, should I say, exploiting their image to the common people? It is entertaining us, but is it really ethical to do this? Did we take their permission?”
Beyond defamation and intrusion of privacy concerns, the possibility exists that someone will post an adult political figure threatening war or something equally dangerous—and people will not realize the content is false, a deepfake.
Further, with phone or other recordings of voices, people have the potential to create deepfakes of ordinary citizens.
Das Choudhury pointed out the difficulty in tracing who created content when it is shared online repeatedly and AI tools are available cheaply to everyone. The problem of tracing content creation goes to cyber security systems, but they are connected to other domains such as education and healthcare.
“AI is impacting all aspects of the society, and we are all connected to each other by some means,” Das Choudhury said. “So, tracing the first one who created is another major task, and that is also a concern of the legal ethics and conscience.”
Other AI concerns or misuses she mentioned include data privacy, bias, copyright violation, plagiarism, cheating in school and loss of jobs—although AI is also expected to create jobs.
One of her coauthors on the book chapter, Das, said generative AI represents one of the most transformative advancements in the field of artificial intelligence and has big advantages and disadvantages.
“Its biggest advantage lies in its ability to augment human creativity, whether in art, content creation, software development or scientific discovery,” he said. “It democratizes access to advanced tools, enhances productivity across domains and holds potential for solving complex societal challenges. However, its rapid—and in many cases mindless—adoption also raises serious concerns about misinformation, ethical misuse, intellectual property violations and deep societal disruptions, particularly around employment and education. Like any powerful technology, its long-term impact will depend on how responsibly and inclusively we govern its use and development.”
Das Choudhury likened generative AI to electricity in the potential it holds to revolutionize the world overnight. She said it is already transforming society and we need to adapt to it.
“With ethics and morality, we have to embrace the reality, the new changes, and proceed with it toward the new and better future,” she said.
Public awareness of AI tools is increasing, but Das said he thinks there is still room for ethical understanding and policy rigor. He said his collaboration with Das Choudhury aims to address foundational research with practical application, particularly focusing on responsible and explainable generative AI systems.
“I hope that our joint work not only contributes to the global academic discourse but also lays the groundwork for usable frameworks that industries and governments can adopt,” he said.
Besides researching and writing about AI and related legal and ethical concerns, Das Choudhury is teaching a new course, “Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision for Agricultural Science and Natural Resources,” in the School of Natural Resources and the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Nebraska. She has also taught an honors short course, “Artificial Intelligence: Foundations, Frontiers and Interdisciplinary Applications.”
She works with and teaches students and interns internationally and collaborates with scientists worldwide. She has spoken at conferences in England, where she completed her doctorate, and India, where she earned her prior degrees, as well as in the United States. This year, she attracted notice in Nepal and Bhutan, and universities in both countries invited her to speak at conferences.
She is guest editing a special issue, “Next-Generation Vision Systems in Agriculture—Toward Explainable and Trustworthy AI,” for the journal Information with Alakananda Mitra, a research assistant professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Das Choudhury said a robust legal framework must be established in AI.
“The time has now got here to establish the legal framework to deal with all these issues,” she said. “Such a system will ensure transparency in AI systems by bringing every aspect of AI development and deployment under public inspection. By implementing these measures, we can foster greater accountability, trust and fairness in the evolving landscape of AI.”