Is the AI Genie Out of the Bottle? And Can We Still Control It?
AI Genie in the bottle. Generated with AI tool.
With the UK Online Safety Act 2025 now in force, the digital world, which let’s face it is the world we live and work in, faces a new era of accountability. The efforts made to protect vulnerable users from harmful content, one question remains:
Can legislation keep up with the pace of technology? What we really mean by technology is robotics and AI.
Generative AI is no longer a niche tool — it’s everywhere, we all see it and hear it every day, from small screen to big screen, from in your ears to in your car, and I think that is as dangerous as any other form of content.
From deepfakes to synthetic news articles, the ability to create convincing alternative truths at scale is now in the hands of anyone with a connected device, even your smart speakers is involved, in terms of data gathering and broadcasting.
The Online Safety Act tackles illegal content and platform responsibility, but AI-generated fake content lives in a grey zone — often not illegal, but deeply harmful in influencing our state of mind and our actions
Think about this..
A fake AI-generated press release impacts a company’s stock and damages its reputation as a video of a CEO spreads false political views, and personally uses this to flood threads and forums with false points of view, images and videos destroying reputations and potentially endangering lives because of the extreme content.
Sound crazy? – did you see the presidential repost of a fake Obama arrest video and the support it got for being real?
Where is the balance?
Like all forms of news and content, we will have a bias toward our culture, background, ambitions, politics, ethics, our values – all the things that make us, well, us. To date in history, most people get a balanced view due to there is a real-world, real-time interaction with other people, work, home, school, and socialising all give us the opportunity to listen and share our views and have them talked through and challenged. We use to take our news and information from a few reasonably qualified sources, but as I sit here writing this, I have an office half full of people and 3 devices open on my desk with 3 different platforms – all pushing “stuff” at me.
For context - we asked our fav Ai tool when was the most competitive time in human history – here is what we got:
That’s a fascinating question — and it depends on how we define “competitive.” If we’re talking about intense rivalry for power, resources, or survival, here are a few standout periods in human history:
The Warring States Period (China, 475–221 BCE)
Why it was competitive: Seven major states fought for dominance in a fragmented China.
Outcome: The Qin state emerged victorious, unifying China under the first emperor.
Legacy: A golden age of military strategy (e.g., Sun Tzu’s Art of War) and political innovation.
The Age of Exploration & Colnial Competition (15th–18th centuries)
Why it was competitive: European powers raced to explore, conquer, and colonize new lands.
Outcome: Massive global empires, exploitation of indigenous peoples, and the birth of global trade.
Legacy: Set the stage for modern geopolitics and economic systems.
The Cold War (1947–1991)
Why it was competitive: A global ideological and technological rivalry between the US and USSR.
Key arenas: Nuclear arms race, space race, proxy wars, espionage.
Legacy: Shaped modern international relations, tech innovation, and military strategy.
Then un un-promoted I got this tagged on – after this It tried to upgrade my Office licence (joke to show I’m human)
The Present Day
Why now? We’re in a hyper-competitive era of:
AI development
Geopolitical realignment
Climate adaptation
Economic and cyber warfare
Unique twist: The competition is now global, digital, and existential.
There is little we can do about legislation, it is something that just really happens to us, and the tech companies and on a road that is way beyond anything before, so what can you do?
Like always proactive education, and the want to educate yourself is critical. We need basic, or not so basic AI literacy to help us mange the firehose of content coming at us all the time.
Where do you get this from – asking your AI platform is open thing but getting different sources and views and speaking with people about it is the real game changer
What’s your view? Can we still control AI’s impact — or is it time to rethink how we live with it?