Does Artificial Intelligence Help or Harm Online Communities?

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This morning, I had a new prescription called in from my doctor, so I called the pharmacy to see if they had received it yet. I’m a pharmacy technician, so I’m very familiar with the process. I have two years of personal and professional experience calling pharmacies and asking them about prescriptions and insurance. There’s often an automated system that precedes the call, and always an option to speak to the pharmacy staff. However, on my CVS call this morning, it seems that artificial intelligence has gotten to this system. Instead of a short conversation with another technician that would last approximately thirty seconds, I stumbled through an interaction with an AI voice for about two minutes before giving up and going to the pharmacy and hoping that the medication was not out of stock, or facing some other significant delay.

Over the last couple of years, AI features seem to be implemented in every aspect of our lives. When you use Google to search a question, the top answer it gives you is an AI overview instead of presenting the most relevant link. Every social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) has an AI chatbot feature, as well as tons of AI content spamming their feeds. Job applications are one of the most frustrating tasks right now due to the integration of artificial intelligence.

There are a multitude of reasons why businesses are including artificial intelligence in so many of their functions, but one stands out: the prospect of increasing the quality of their customers’ experience. Hypothetically, AI can provide cheap, fast, personalized customer service when people are not available to do it themselves (Martin, 2024). But what do customers think about this?

Some customers are okay with AI assistance, as it does surpass human assistance in some ways. It is always available, it can address issues faster, and it has access to more information. It also comes with a list of complaints. The majority of customers prefer to be helped by humans, and rate their experiences higher for human customer service workers than for chatbots. Users say human customer service workers understand their requests better, they provide more thorough explanations, they’re less likely to frustrate them, and they offer more solutions to their issues (Georges, 2025).

This brings us to our main question: Does artificial intelligence help or harm online communities? Let’s look at a few points for each side.

According to the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law, there are a handful of ways artificial intelligence can help people in online spaces. It can quickly automate data analysis, find patterns, and summarize key points. It can save time and money, and it can provide users with visuals to easily understand its outputs (AI for Public Participation: Hope or hype? 2024).

            Artificial intelligence is also the source of a lot of divisive misinformation. It can easily generate inaccurate images that seem very realistic, or deep-fakes, audio, or video edited with AI (Enthec, 2024). There is also the issue of algorithm bias. Since artificial intelligence is often trained by being given access to a wide range of information, biased information can present itself in the AI’s output since it is essentially regurgitating that information (Tumas, 2024).

            At the end of the day, there’s a lot to consider, but the key things to remember should be to think critically about the words you read and pictures and videos you see, and to search for sources and double-check information. Finally, it is important not to let artificial intelligence get in the way of social interaction. While it is useful for quick answers here and there, a chatbot that summarizes and regurgitates information can never replace real, thoughtful discussion between people.

Comment below:

  • Have you seen a lot of AI-created content on your social media feeds? Is it difficult to figure out whether or not it is AI-generated content?
  • How has your experience been with AI features on websites, phone calls, social media, or anywhere else? Has it made customer service or social interaction in general more difficult?
  • Are you a part of any online communities that have been significantly improved or impaired by AI-generated content?

 

Resources:

Enthec. (2024, November 13). Risks of AI in people - ENTHEC. ENTHEC · Kartos · Qondar. https://enthec.com/en/risks-of-ai-in-peoples-online-safety/   

European Center for Not-for-Profit Law. (2024, December 17). AI for Public Participation: Hope or hype?. ECNL. https://ecnl.org/news/ai-public-participation-hope-or-hype  

Georges, C. D. (2025, June 26). 25 stats about AI in customer experience that show how consumers really feel. SurveyMonkey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/25-stats-about-ai-in-customer-experience-that-show-how-consumers-really-feel/  

Martin, C. (2024, October 9). 7 benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for business. University of Cincinnati. https://online.uc.edu/blog/business-benefits-artificial-intelligence-ai/#:~:text=By%20automating%20repetitive%20tasks%2C%20AI,update%20it%20in%20related%20systems.   

Tumas, A. (2024, March). Exploring the downside: Disadvantages of AI in Social Media. RSS. https://blog.ocoya.com/blog/ai-disadvantages-social-media  

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