A rant against AI

For as long as people and companies, (including Wacom, who make drawing tablets, y'know, those things designed for artists and pretty much no one else.) have been using generative AI, it's become a giant trigger for me as a self-called "artist". I don't know why I get this mad whenever this happens, but I know that I hate it with a passion.

While it wasn't always like this, I can barely remember a time when I was neutral about it, let alone positive. So, firstly, where did it go wrong?

My first encounter with generative AI was in 2022, when using Dall-e mini was the "hot new thing to do", according to every single YouTuber. Later that same year, ChatGPT became all the rage, and then Midjourney hit the scene, I don't think it was until (2023?) AI was confirmed to actually be stealing from artists, confirmed to be using up more power than a small country, getting more "realistic" that I was converted to someone strictly against AI.

The image you can currently see to your left is a sample image of Adobe's "Firefly", their AI software. This is the best they could do, yet there is so much wrong with it.

So, this is obviously a dog wearing a sweater, but what breed is it??? Well, while looking through the list on the Purina website, it looks to be some kind of Terrier, but with Willow's ears, in which seem to be knitted out of some material. Crossbreed? Definitely not. This dog also has a red glow on the top of it's head, as if it's shooting a laser (or being shot by one).

Onto the sweater: This doggo seems to be celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever other event takes place in December in their religion. I probably would be able to tell, if I was able to tell what the sweater actually said. The sweater reads: "Heaa"? No, that can't be right. from the one red bit that looks like it was supposed to fully wrap around but just gave up, it must spell somethi- No. It's a bunch of literal squiggles.

And it's not just Adobe...

C'mon, Google, you're a multi-billion dollar company dammit! Why, oh why, does your AI screw up so much? First, it cites WELL-KNOWN, SATIRICAL news site, "The onion" as a source on why you should eat a small rock every day, but I can hear the idiots already shouting: "But that was when Gemini first came out! It's gotten better; See for yourself!" And my answer is: "See what?", as just a couple of days ago, I googled "Are Michael Jackson's pronouns actually 'he/he'?" as a joke, but Gemini took me seriously, the result is the following image I then posted to Bluesky, on your right:

No matter how true it is, when you Google something now, you don't get links to other websites on top, (y'know, like Google?) but rather an AI-generated response, with no official way to turn it off.

Even when you search up stuff like "Disable Google AI", or "Opt out of Gemini", you're gonna get an AI overview, telling you there is no real way to. One of the only ways people have found are installing browser extensions, or... Swearing at it. This is real, try it.

When I first got my Laptop, I made sure that this Laptop would not have the spyware (CoPilot+). This section isn't about that, but rather me thinking I was free from Microsoft's AI, only for it to run after me at light-speed and stab me in the back.

A couple days ago, I uninstalled CoPilot while organising my hard drive, so you can imagine my surprise the next time I opened Notepad when they PUT AI INTO IT.

I am never going to ever use generative AI again, you shouldn't, too. It saves the artist, and saves the environment. But at the end of the day, it's your decision. If you want to watch the world burn, fine, but everything negative that happens because of that decision will be on you, and the other idiots who thought this was a good idea, encouraged the suits, and helped them make this dystopia.