Should AI be regulated? Local students, professor weigh in as debate grows in Washington
PALM DESERT, Calif. (KESQ) – As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into everyday life, questions about how the technology should be regulated and who should be responsible for keeping it safe are becoming more urgent.
From completing schoolwork and organizing daily tasks to generating realistic images, videos and voices, AI tools are giving users capabilities that were difficult to imagine just a few years ago.
News Channel 3 is taking the question to the Coachella Valley: Do you think artificial intelligence needs regulations?
News Channel 3 spoke with College of the Desert students and professors, along with a local artificial intelligence expert, about whether AI needs additional guardrails and what those safeguards could look like.
For College of the Desert student Shayna Alexander, artificial intelligence has already become part of her routine.
“I am using AI almost every day due to getting summarization for my homework templates, or helping me out at home with my daughter’s daily needs,” Alexander said.
She sees AI as a useful tool, but believes there should be limits on how much people depend on it.
“I believe we definitely need guardrails because I like to say if you’re having open heart surgery tomorrow, would you want someone who just only learned AI?” Alexander said. “AI can’t be empathetic and AI cannot use discernment. So I think that we need to definitely have some guardrails.”
Alexander said AI can make certain tasks easier, but she does not believe it should replace human judgment.
“I believe we can use it as a tool, a helpful tool, but not something we need to rely on,” she said.
Balancing innovation and safetySat Singh, founder of AI Coachella Valley, said the debate over regulating artificial intelligence is complicated by how quickly the technology is developing.
He said safeguards should not come at the expense of innovation, but that development should still happen in a safe and ethical way.
“You want innovation. That’s… you want that to happen, but you want to do it in the same safe and ethical manner,” Singh said. “I think we need more understanding right now.”
One potential guardrail Singh pointed to is transparency.
As AI generated images, videos and other content become increasingly realistic, Singh said people should know when what they are seeing was created or altered using artificial intelligence.
“As a consumer, I want to know when AI is put in front of me, whether that’s AI video, AI images, AI content, AI anything,” Singh said.
Concerns over deepfakesCollege of the Desert student Colin Rhodes said one of his biggest concerns is the ability to use artificial intelligence to create realistic content involving actual people.
“I think it definitely needs guardrails, because I’ve seen some of the scary things that people can do with it,” Rhodes said. “I’ve seen people make images of like actual people doing things that they would never do.”
Rhodes said he uses AI primarily for brainstorming and planning rather than having the technology complete assignments for him.
He also raised concerns about the material used to develop AI systems, including whether creators consented to their work being used.
Professor Felix Marhuenda Donate, who teaches computer information systems at College of the Desert, said advances in AI generated video and audio are also making deepfakes easier to create and more difficult to recognize.
“The effects are getting a lot easier nowadays. Video deepfakes, voice deepfakes,” Marhuenda Donate said.
He said families should consider establishing a safe word that can be used to verify someone’s identity if they receive a suspicious call appearing to come from a loved one.
“These deepfakes sound real, they look real, and they’re fooling a lot of folks out there,” Marhuenda Donate said. “So talk to your loved ones so that if in case they get an awkward phone call saying that they’re in trouble or something, they can use that safe word.”
Drawing lines in the classroomThe debate over AI guardrails is also already playing out inside classrooms.
Patrick Jacobs, an assistant professor of computer information systems at College of the Desert, allows students to use AI in his classes, but requires them to follow academic standards and cite work that is not their own.
For beginning programmers, Jacobs compares relying too heavily on artificial intelligence to bringing a forklift into a gym.
“The purpose of going to the gym is to get stronger muscles, not to lift the weights,” Jacobs said. “So I just ask to see work from them, from their brains.”
Jacobs said the goal in an educational setting is not simply reaching the final answer. Students also need to develop the skills required to reach it themselves.
Marhuenda Donate expressed a similar view, saying AI can help students understand material but should not replace learning.
“It’s okay to use it as a tool, just like I use Google and Wikipedia as a tool, AI is nothing but a tool to help you with understanding,” Marhuenda Donate said.
He warned students who allow the technology to replace the learning process could ultimately enter the workforce without the skills their education was intended to develop.
What could AI guardrails look like?There was no single safeguard identified by everyone News Channel 3 spoke with.
But several themes repeatedly emerged from the conversations: greater transparency about when people are interacting with AI generated content, accountability when AI systems cause harm, protections against deceptive uses such as deepfakes and boundaries that keep humans involved in important decisions.
Alexander said responsibility should not fall on only one group.
“It shouldn’t be AI’s responsibility,” Alexander said. “It’s all of our responsibility.”
Singh said the challenge will be finding ways to address the risks while still allowing artificial intelligence to develop and be used productively.
As AI technology continues to change, the students, educators and expert News Channel 3 spoke with agreed on one fundamental point: artificial intelligence can be a useful tool, but how people build it, use it and set boundaries around it will matter just as much as what the technology itself can do.
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