AI pisses me off

I like to think I'm pretty good at embracing new technology, and I will be the first to say that older people (aka boomers) who refuse to use anything that was invented after the 70s are dumb, but I draw the limit at generative AI.

I've seen a lot of people online talking about people hating (specifically generative!!!!) AI are fear mongering, or performance activists. It annoys me that so few people actually appreciate the very real harm that generative AI causes on both an ecological and a societal level. For starters, AI uses so much unnecessary power and water, things that really can't go spare in today's world. And then, there's the societal impact. Not only is it disastrous for creatives (artists in particular) but I've seen so many people use it for school in ways that are so disappointing. Using it to write essays, sure, but other things as well - find information, condense texts without them even reading it. Not only does it provide biased, sometimes downright incorrect information (because it's a language modelling intelligence, not a search engine), but when you avoid using these skills, you never build them up, and research and essay writing are pretty important parts of school.

Anyway, not to be patronising, but it just pisses me off how normalised using generative AI is, and how pointing out its flaws just gets you labelled as a tech-hating boomer. Rant over!