Many years ago I developed several projects in Second Life, the first real 3D metaverse launched in 2007 if I am not mistaken. One of the first impression you got when interacting in the platform is that all avatars representing users were "perfect", you could decide about your face, hair, body shape, clothing, walking etc. And of course, you could change any of those any time you wanted. There were many, many good and interesting uses of that platform, from getting immersed into the reproduction of a disease inside a human body and taking a lecture inside to having a 3D representation of your future house from the architectural company designing it and waling inside to experience that space. But of course, everything was unreal and at some point, after spending several hours a day in there, your reality was changing little by little to the point it can end up fooling you.
AI in a way, is similar to that, it "reproduces" a reality, be it with data, images or explanations which are created from previous information. The problem is when we get fooled thinking that is the "real truth" and do not take it as just one of the options.
The problem today is AI is everywhere, not just inside a "closed platform" as Second Life, and sometimes you don't even realize you may be interacting with AI. I am sure, little by little scientist and experts will learn how to use data sources with caution, making a difference from those supported by AI and those directly from real sources, the problem is that 95% of the users will not act like that, and they will believe any information they get browsing on any site.
The next generations will have a wild world to live in as "fake" unreal world grows bigger and bigger compared to "real" one
I never played any of these, or WoW or anything. But, I have a friend who got divorced because of WoW, as he was spending all his waking hours on it, rather than with his wife, who was also a friend of mine, gorgeous, fit and intelligent. He was fooled into thinking what he was doing mattered, while what mattered walked away.
This is why I question marked "research" because even though I am generally aware, when the result is generated from a database somewhere, it is likely using AI anyway. It is opaque to me though, and I worked in an AI-driven information management company :)
Only at the level of the pusher, not the consumer. I reckon this is where blockchain should be used to ensure original information is verified.
Every dystopian movie and book come to life....