The Dystopian Side of AI: Ownership, Ethics, and Market Research Implications

At Intuify, we are deeply concerned about the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly when it comes to the ownership of people’s likeness, voices, and creative work. The increasing use of AI to replicate human expression—without proper compensation or consent—feels dystopian and raises serious questions about intellectual property rights, data ethics, and market research transparency.

Currently, landmark copyright lawsuits are underway regarding the unauthorized use of proprietary data to train large language models (LLMs). While this is already problematic, certain industries have taken things even further.

A friend of our founder, Kevin Karty, who works in the video game industry, has been tracking an unsettling trend. He recently posted an article exposing how major gaming studios have secretly used AI-generated assets—despite denying it publicly for months. Even more troubling, he highlighted a case where a studio is now requiring voice actors to allow their voices and accents to be cloned by AI as a condition of continued employment.

There is something fundamentally wrong about this.

At Intuify, we firmly believe that digital replication should come with proper licensing fees paid to the original creators. This principle applies not only to AI-generated content but also to the market research industry, where data privacy, sourcing integrity, and consumer trust are paramount. If AI models are trained on human-created content—whether it’s images, voices, or behavioral data—those contributors deserve recognition and compensation.

However, the unregulated use of AI to replicate people’s voices and likenesses for any purpose, without clear consent or governance mechanisms, is an alarming development. This issue extends beyond entertainment and creative fields; it has profound implications for consumer research, data ethics, and AI-driven business insights.

As AI continues to evolve, the market research industry must establish stronger ethical guidelines for the use of AI-generated insights, behavioral modeling, and synthetic data. Transparency, consent, and fair compensation for data contributors should be at the core of AI adoption in research and beyond.

If these concerns are not addressed, industries may find themselves in a race to the bottom, where human creativity, identity, and intellectual property become mere raw materials for AI without ethical oversight.

The question remains: How should AI-driven content creation and consumer insights be managed responsibly? At Intuify, we are committed to ensuring that AI enhances market research without compromising ethics, privacy, or fairness. The industry must take a stand before these issues become irreversible.

Let’s start the conversation.

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