AI? No!

   

I guarantee that this website is 100% free from any form of so-called ‘artificial intelligence’ (or AI) !!! And I solemnly promise that it will remain so!!!

   

In fact I like to render “AI” as ‘absent intelligence’ … that’s because it isn’t actually ‘intelligence’ but merely a simulation, an illusion of intelligence. It’s based on and reliant on masses of material created by humans, and the more material it devours the better it can simulate. BUT: it could never actually be creative in surprising or inspired or idiosyncratic ways. Instead that gets levelled out. Sameness is the aim, not real intelligence.

   

You get the gist: I am quite anti-AI. I find it scary, dangerous and threatening. And now when even the expert pioneers of the development of AI sound warnings that this Frankenstein’s monster that they’ve created has to be reigned in and regulated or it could become an existential threat to human civilization, then I for one am prepared to heed those warnings. AI already undermines education, creativity and the arts, more and more of our working life, our culture in general … and ultimately humanity as such will be at stake.

   

I refuse to take part in this. Call me a Luddite, but I will resist and not allow AI to play any role in this website or my personal life, as far as that is possible. AI will encroach upon everything if we let it. But we can’t all just let it take over the world unopposed.

   

I’ve had encounters with AI that were unsolicited and out of the blue. I’m a subscriber to an academic website’s mailing list which on two occasions sent me a message announcing that “an AI” had created a podcast out of one of my old academic articles. I listened to the first one and while it sounded spookily human, even chatty and likeable, what it said content-wise ultimately missed the points that my article was trying to make completely. So, using the parameters offered, I set this podcast as private, i.e. for my ears only, and asked for this sort of thing not to be repeated. However, a short while later, another such message popped up with yet another podcast that “an AI” had mutilated another article of mine into. Again, I protested and demanded that this stop – and fortunately for the time being it has … although I cannot be sure, of course, whether it’s just those notifications that have stopped. Whether they continue to steal my material in secret I have no way of knowing. And then I even had an advertising phone call that initially sounded genuine when I answered it, but soon it became clear that this was automated, so AI-driven. It politely signed off as soon as it became apparent that what they were trying to offer me didn’t apply in my case (namely more visibility on Facebook – which is irrevocably zero), but still, it was spooky. And I hear horror stories about AI from others in my circles too. It’s freaky.

  

Then a while ago a colleague of my wife’s asked her if I use AI for my website. When she reported that to me I was shocked. How could anybody even think that? But then it occurred to me that perhaps AI has become so normalized already, that people regard this a sensible question. Or worse: they expect people to use AI. Well, I am undeniably a prolific writer, and the sheer size of this website that has resulted from that over the years may these days indeed prompt people to assume that it could only have been created with the help of AI. It’s almost a vicious circle then: the more you genuinely write, the less it is believed that you really did. Moreover, apparently people can distinguish less and less between the real and the simulated.

   

This is why I decided it was necessary to add this statement to my website to make it clear once and for all that I do not use AI and that I’m a rock of resistance in the ever-worsening sea of threats from AI.

   

And if you don’t just want to take my word for it, here are a few outside sources that can provide food for thought on this topic (all external links that open in new tabs). This one is a piece that is primarily about studies indicating that AI use gets in the way of critical thinking and ultimately fosters stupidity. This one is about the threat of AI to human labour. This one is about the impact of AI on truth and the arts. This one is a piece by an esteemed fellow blogger, book author and DT expert on the nightmarish world of AI-generated book publishing. And this one is about how increased use of AI at Facebook and Instagram (both part of the criminal organization that is “Meta”) has led to many thousands more people suffering the same fate as myself five years ago – a random account ban.

   

What really freaks me out the most, though, is this apparent normalization of AI use – students casually using AI apps to have their essays written; people relying on them so much that they ask them just about everything; and I know of at least one case where a person used AI to generate their job applications – without the slightest hint of a bad conscience, even though this so clearly constitutes cheating!

   

And as if all those sociocultural aspects weren’t bad enough, there’s also the environmental aspect. AI needs vast amounts of data, stored in ever multiplying and growing data centres, which require enormous amounts of energy (mostly for cooling), outstripping any green energy efforts (by the way, streaming services are problematic for similar reasons). Their impact is, at current growth rates, expected to surpass that of cattle farming (mainly for meat consumption) as the Number One factor contributing to climate change! But again that’s something most providers and users of AI ignore or are even unaware of.

   

Where will it all lead? I am very pessimistic – but for as long as I can I will resist! I will resist!!