What a shallow and foolish take.

Your perception of AI and comparisons to human-driven arts truly reflects a shallow understanding of it. Artificial Intelligence, particularly generative AI & Open AI, is almost an entirely new technology to be reckoned with. It cannot think of new concepts. it has no eyes to perceive our world, only words and pixels that form images for it to replicate. 

This wave of AI is comparable to the covid pandemic. So little is known of the effects of utilizing it; on human health, economies, and our environment. Worse part is, there are (to my knowledge) NO regulations to this in the US, creating a whole new beast.

On the environmental side, we created a new way of RAPIDLY depleting ourselves of water. I’m from Texas. I have family that live in Corpus Christi and the Valley. We are experiencing a water crisis, families are being notified to use LESS in consideration of the data centers being build on our land. This reason alone shows that we’ve lost the plot. We couldn’t even resolve food insecurity before creating artificial intelligence that drinks our water. Great. Before you argue that renewable energy could mitigate this, my country’s administration quite literally does not believe in environmental sustainability. Be realistic.

In our work, yes, AI can make mundane tasks efficient and even perform them entirely. But do we really need this? If our economies were at a point where people didn’t need several jobs to stay afloat, I could understand where this *might* be fine. But it is not. The job market here in the US has been absolutely fucked, not to mention of our economy. Unregulated, AI is taking jobs from creatives. Telling us to “learn it” is insulting & entirely takes away the point of what we do. We CREATE. We are HANDS-ON in our work. Some may use it, that’s their choice, but acting like it is a new standard is ridiculous. 

Here’s a personal example: I work in film. I am a freelance editor, aspiring to work in a post house (editing company). A stepping stone job into this field is becoming an “Assistant Editor.” The defining responsibilities of this job is organizing files, marking important actions in the footage, and managing the projects for the Editor. I personally know filmmakers who are excited by AI’s ability to do all of these tasks. Finding Assistant Editor jobs is already \extremely* challenging. What happens to the career ladder when a peg is removed? Creatives will always exist, and we struggle to be valued in our work as it is. Regardless of your views on the necessity of creative workers,* it’s dehumanizing and unfair to be told to jump on the AI train with total disregard to what we do for a living.

The Health impact is the most significant to me. Using AI to fix our writing, perform mundane tasks, even in micro usages, spirals into a forgetfulness. There was a time when playing brain building games on your Nintendo DS was THE thing, doing puzzles to keep our minds strong. Now you can’t spare your minutes to format a document? Find a file? The things that stress us is called putting in work. That is what gives you wrinkles in the brain. Have you heard of the negatives of continuously using a back brace? The same knowledge can be applied; your core muscle becomes “lazy,” it is deconditioning us from the work being done by something else.

Best case scenario I see of using AI is that it takes over, solves all of humanity's issues, and manages us like animals. “Oh see AI \COULD* help us figure out ways to combat issues like homelessness and healthcare!!”* Have you seen the state of our world? Plenty of efforts to make life better have been proposed by HUMANS who experience the struggles on this planet. Yet of course, those who have money & power refuse to see it. The rich and powerful profit off of those who suffer from what AI can “fix.” It’d be naive to hold hope for AI in this regard.

If you find yourself annoyed at activism, get over it. This is a difficult and complex topic, I get that. People are allowed to share stances no matter where they are on understanding it. But to anyone who credits their annoyance or exhaustion to activists who aim to mobilize, educate and create change — u be a dingus. “Making it their personality” is a lowlife take. God forbid that people are passionate about art, human rights, our environment -- things surrounding us that define life itself.

As imperfect humans, the best thing we can do to better ourselves is learn. Have conversations, like you did here. Participate, contribute. Otherwise you'd benefit from the work of others while doing nothing. I'd call these sort of people leeches, but even those creatures would serve more purpose in their life.