Two years ago I wrote an article about how my employer had embraced generative AI as it relates to software development, which I supported, but I remained skeptical that I’d find it useful for creative works, like writing or image generation.
A month later, I posted an update on this blog with my more complicated thoughts, especially the potential for damage. At that time, Twitter had been using it to create nonconsensual pornography with Taylor Swift. I guess I hadn’t expected the company’s Nazi owner joking about its use for child sexual abuse material, but that’s where it went.
Since then, we started learning about how the data centers training these models use grotesque amounts of water, leading to toxic waste and poisoning their communities. The deregulated growth of this industry is leading to more and more of these poison factories, which require more and more energy, so now they’re installing nuclear power plants in my home state of Kentucky just to run them, and they’ve just started stealing taxpayer money to do it. And despite the “clean energy” created by nuclear power, it requires constant, thorough regulation and oversight, which is something my state and the country has been trying to abolish over the past few decades. (So please, if you think “nuclear is the future”, go read the history of Yucca Mountain and maybe you’ll learn why this is an incredibly naïve idea, especially as my local municipalities have a history of unlawfully disposing of radioactive waste.)
On top of that, social media is swamped with “AI slop” and I’ve even found the coding agents less and less reliable, ultimately leading to disabling search engine AI summaries in favor of harnessing my early 2000s Google Fu. At this point in time, I have absolutely no use for AI in any of its forms and am actively calling my local representatives to let them know.
Ultimately, I believe generative AI, in its current state, is actively harmful to the environment, economy, and any community where it’s allowed to prosper.
I can’t, in good conscious, recommend AI for any purpose, and I firmly believe it should be heavily regulated. We are long past due for swift legal actions taken against the tech oligarchs forcing it down our throat, not just for its usage but for how it sources information. Corporations are making billions off the stolen work of creative individuals, including published books.
That’s the basic gist, and you are more than welcome to respond with your thoughts, but I figure there are plenty who want to commiserate, so I plan to make this a series with each post starting from a place of personal anecdotes and using data to back up the litany of reasons why I’ve grown to despise those three little sparkles wherever I see them.
Disagree? Have your own AI horror stories? Please, comment below; maybe we can start a discussion somewhere that’s not riddled with AI chat bots.
What do you think?