AI….environmental and intellectual disaster waiting to happen?? Or already happening??

I really enjoyed the comments about AI on my last blog. It seems that we are in agreement about the disaster that AI is and will continue to be. I’ve had mixed feelings about AI for a while now and the more I read and think about it the less I like it. I’ve used AI to help create some images such as the face for last year’s recycle piece. I doubt I would have come up with the image without AI. I was using AI as a tool. But even as a tool it is limited. It does some really strange things to human faces, human hands, animals, perspective, etc.  So even though it’s created an image you really can’t trust that it’s accurate. So then what good is it? Maybe it’s only good to spark an idea when you are stuck. 

Here’s the piece I made from the AI image last year next to the AI image. My piece is on the right. I was definitely more excited about AI last year than I am now.

It’s easy to see that AI is an environmental disaster. Climate change is real even though many of us choose to ignore or deny it. The energy that AI data centers will use will just add to this serious problem. They will increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increase the average temperature of the Earth. They will also use precious water resources to cool all those computers in the data centers. This is also a disaster. Plus as Pat pointed out last week some of our precious farm land will be sacrificed to build AI data centers. I really can’t see how AI won’t be a major climate disaster. 

I also think that AI is an intellectual disaster. Let me explain what I mean by that. It’s pretty clear to me that technology such as cell phones have made us dummer. I think AI is only going to accelerate that problem. Using AI to write for you certainly doesn’t help develop your brain or help develop critical thinking skills. Why think when a computer can do that for you? I also wonder if it will kill creativity. Why come up with your own art idea if the computer can do it for you? Plus where is that idea coming from? AI steals from everyone. So I would assume if you have your work online that you are being stolen from. The AI programs don’t care that it’s your work. So AI steals and kills creativity if you let it. 

What’s going to happen to us as a result of AI? What jobs are people supposed to do after AI takes them? Our daughter works for a big software company that just laid off 30,000 employees to fund AI data centers. Other companies are doing the same. Her team lost a member in the lay off. Her team had been forced to use AI. She said she spent all day yesterday “arguing” with the AI model to change something that needed to be changed. It refused to change it. She eventually scrapped what they were working on and started over. Seems AI thinks it’s perfect when it’s full of errors. So AI doesn’t save time and work. It creates more work for humans. That’s another intellectual disaster. 

I really don’t envy teachers and other professionals that have to figure out if submissions are written by a person or AI. AI is making it easier for scammers to fool us and get our money. 

So AI is screwing up the planet, taking our jobs, ruining our brains, stealing our money. What a mess. 

Thanks for reading what I wrote. AI had no input in this blog. 

Almost forgot this….there is a local art show that is coming in January about engineering and art. I was going to submit one of my energy quilts. The application had instructions if you had used AI to help create your art piece. You had to explain how in detail you used AI. I was happy to see that. I guess we might be seeing more of those kinds of instructions.

Chris