off we go

Of all the things we could’ve off-loaded to machines, why did people choose expression? Art and writing are forms of self-expression, ones which require practice to hone. There is no practice with AI, especially one which you do not train yourself. The world is full of yellow and em-dashes. It’s sad, because I love em-dashes and now I’m censoring myself so that people don’t confuse me for the droids. They don’t suffer through these words like I do. They don’t reason like I do—and they may not reason at all.

As our reasoning atrophies and these models progress, we’ll continue to dig ourselves into still deeper holes. We’ll have to tackle both tough questions like what constitutes consciousness and insane discourse like if vegans can use Grok 6.7 or if you can cheat on your boyfriend with Claude. Also people will inevitably break confidentiality agreements or accidentally disclose national/trade secrets.

Of all the modernities warming the planet, this is definitely the worst. It’s over-inflating egos and economic bubbles, both of which we will have to clean up when they inevitably burst. This hype has also embedded itself in everything, even where it doesn’t belong. “AI” is more than automation. Whenever I see a product like a spam-filter marketed as “now having AI”, I think about how we had just as effective spam filters before. What is AI adding, other than a degree to our climate projections?

more reasons AI sucks

As if it wasn’t bad enough that AI is killing the environment, it’s killing our critical thinking abilities. It’s killing people’s relationships. It’s covering the world (online and physically) in graphics with a horrid yellow tint. It’s devaluing education as a whole—though that was already in a downswing for commodification reasons.

In Antarctica, I happened upon not one but TWO climate activists using ChatGPT for easily google-able questions. A gracious interpretation would chalk this up to ignorance, and a less favorable one to vanity. Still, it feels a little hypocritical. I’m far from an activist, but I’m aware of the huge environmental impact of on the ice we were literally standing on. AI is polluting the climate activists themselves!

Advocacy has always ebbed and flowed through history, but art is constant. Now, it feels like a constant barrage of terrible art by terrible people. Personally, I am of the opinion that artists have to suffer at least a little for the art. I agonize over word choice and design and hosting options on this site. This isn’t magnificent, but not all art has to be. In Florianópolis though, I met a man who told me he was an artist. When I asked his medium, he said AI. The most impressive thing in that moment was how quickly any attraction I had disappeared.

My love of learning has persisted through time, but that love is fueled by curiosity that smolders inside of me. Questions often float around my head, and there’s value in them being held and not answered. Mulling over many of those questions ended up yielding some of (what I consider to be) my best writing. Even beyond education, AI seems to be killing the last vestiges of curiosity, discernment, and critical thought. I would condemn it to hell, but I fear that’s an inevitability in this climate crisis.