Artificial Intelligence has been the new buzzword in town ever since ChtGPT made its presence felt. Google’s Bard/Gemini, Microsoft Co-Pilot, and a slew of other AI tools then started stepping into this domain and trying to capture a major chunk of the user base. Moreover, judging by the current scenario, it looks quite a challenging task for any player to dethrone the Open AI’s offering [with Chat GPT 4o further cementing its legacy at the top of the pecking order].
However, if there’s anyone that has the capacity and more importantly the data to give ChatGPT a run for their money, then it’s the Silicon Valley giant. The two perfect examples of the same are the integration of AI into search results [which is used by over 95% of the population] as well as its Android operating system [which stands out as the most widely used OS across many countries of the world].
As a result of this, we can already witness a plethora of benefits that one could take full advantage of due to the ease of access to these AI features. However, on the flip side, it does have its fair share of risks and caveats as well, something that usually goes under the radar.
So this guide will try to maintain an equilibrium between the benefits and risks of AI, especially on your smartphone, and make you aware of the same, as this is going to be the most widely used medium for using AI functionalities. So without any further ado, let’s get started.
The Benefits and Risks of AI Features on Smartphone
The below-mentioned points reflect the author’s personal opinions and you are free to agree/disagree on the same. But be sure to make your voices heard and share your valuable opinions with the rest of us in the comments section below.
Benefits of AI on Smartphone
Google was probably the first player in the market to introduce AI tweaks in the smartphone and even to this date, many other OEMs are simply incorporating those features directly onto their OS skin. While the eighth iteration of the Pixel lineup was the first smartphone to get blessed with these features, many have since followed suit. With that said, here are some of the most noteworthy AI features that you can find in the Pixel devices as well as the OS from the likes of Samsung’s One UI among others.
Audio Magic Eraser
Audio Magic Eraser analyzes the audio in a video clip and helps you remove the unwanted background noise from the audio. You have the option to either reduce or completely eliminate the background noise from the audio.
Magic Editor
One of my personal favorites, the Magic Editor allows you to remove unwanted elements from the photos. Apart from that, you can re-adjust the subject by long-pressing and moving it to any other location in the photo and even fill in the missing parts of the photo with auto-generated detailing which is in sync with the actual image.
Zoom Enhance
It’s no hidden secret that once you zoom in on an image, it gets blurry and pixelated. Well, you can now put this concern to rest, all thanks to Zoom Enhance which will digitally enhance your photo and keep the zoom blur level up to the minimum possible extent.
Assistant with Gemini
The assistant app from Google was already the best player in town. Now, the incorporation of Gemini AI into it will further solidify its position as the best assistant app one could currently have access to, not just on Android but across all the OS [yes, that is a bold claim to make, considering the presence of big players of Siri, but such has been the performance of Google’s Assistant till now without AI that with AI, things are surely going to reach new heights, somewhere that others might take eternity to reach].
From reading your emails to making a summary of it, from creating a grocery list for 10 people to identifying the content and context of the image, you name it and the assistant will get the job done.
Call Screening
This ought to be one of the earliest AI features when Artificial Intelligence even yet to reach the masses. For the unaware, Call Screening will automatically screen the call you if you can not or rather don’t want to answer it. As soon as someone calls you, you can instruct the assistant to screen the call on your behalf and then subsequently give you a summary of that call. You can then decide accordingly whether you want to pick up that call or not.
Real-Time Translation
Thanks to the nifty AI addition, The Rdatranslation and transcription can now happen on the go- while having a discussion or even while on a call.
AI-Powered Videos
Further improving the quality of your videos, the AI power video feature will process each frame of your video as you shoot it and then enhance it frame-by-frame. Sounds impressive, right? That’s not it. It would also fix issues related to color, lighting, stabilization, blur, sharpness, and graininess.
So these were some of the noteworthy and intriguing functionalities that bring in a slew of benefits for the end-users, not to mention the fact that these action-packed features also make up for the benefits of this AI. However, this is just one side of the coin as these features also possess a relatively higher degree of risk as well. So without further ado, let’s have a look at these caveats too. Follow along.
Drawbacks of AI in Smartphone
While AI does tend to add a plethora of useful features to our arsenal. however, everything isn’t as shiny as it looks from the outside. There are a few caveats and drawbacks associated with AI that usually get swiped off under the mat, and hence many users are unaware of the risks that might come their way should they decide to step into the AI domain. Therefore, in this guide, we will be shedding some light on the threats and dangers that AI brings with itself, especially the ones that are embedded into your smartphones. So without any further ado, let’s get started.
Deepfakes
Digitally manipulating an image, in most cases, superimposing a person’s image over another, has proven to be one of the most concerning uses of AI. It is done in such a way. that generic audiences might not even be able to distinguish a deep fake image from a real one. Making matters worse, newer AI models can even mimic a person’s voice and gesture in a deep fake image, thereby delivering fake and fraudulent messages from a user who actually has literally no involvement in the same.
Privacy and Data Concerns
There have been quite a few instances wherein a few popular AI software have taken a user’s personal data in an unauthorized and unethical way to improvise their own tool. Since there aren’t many AI regulations and laws put in place, many software are taking undue advantage of the same and exploiting user’s data to the maximum possible extent.
Privacy Violations
Arising from the earlier privacy and data concerns, some of these AI tools blatantly use the user’s data for their own good and tend to get away from it simply because there aren’t many stringent rules and regulations put in place to govern how an artificial intelligence company should deal with such data.
Lack of Transparency
Most of the users don’t have an idea or two regarding how their data is actually being used. One major reason for the same is the fact that many of these AI tools don’t lay down proper guidelines or privacy policy pages in the first place. So even if a user wants to know how the data is treated, they have the option to get in touch with the support staff, who would either take ages to respond or might not even reply at all.
Dependency and Reliability
Combining all the above factors, it’s quite obvious why there’s always has been a low level of dependency and reliability on these tools, despite them having such a truckload of intriguing goodies.
Concluding Remarks
Going through all the aforementioned points, one could clearly see that while one on hand, these artificial intelligence software are capable of carrying out such a high level of task that is sure to help the masses and save their valuable time because they complete the tasks in a matter of few seconds which others third-party tools usually takes up ages to get the same job done.
However, that is just half the story. There are still a plethora of risks and caveats associated with these AI tools that need to be addressed, with the ones linked with data being the topmost priority. Until that is taken care of, trying out these promising AI software might come at a cost- a price of potential data and privacy risk, something that no one is willing to take, and rightly so.
On that note, we round off this post about the benefits and risks of AI on a smartphone. We would love to hear your opinions on the same. Do share your valuable opinions with us in the comments section below.
