Thoughts on AI
Here is an article that elucidates a lot of the thoughts and opinions I’ve had on all this.
My main issues with the AI/LLM scheme boil down to:
Environmental impact: the energy and water usage of this technology is beyond irresponsible. As it’s used more often by more and more people, I want those people to consider their impact and reconsider if there isn’t already a better way to do what they’re trying to do (there is.)
More infoScraping of human artists’ work without their consent or credit. Generating images, music, text that copies an existing artist’s style and directly competes with the artist for attention. The overall effect this has of reducing art to nothing but pieces of regurgitated content ultimately demeans the human experience in a serious way.
The megacorporations pushing this into every facet of our lives act without regard to copyright or environmental rules, without regard to basic ethical guidelines or any respect for human creativity. I’m not as concerned that this technology will get good enough at what it does to meaningfully replace workers in a wide variety of sectors as I am that the CEOs who make those decisions will see an easy out and take that opportunity regardless of the quality of the product they get.
As an aside, I hate hearing it referred to as AI. There are better, more accurate, less emotionally-charged terms for it: LLM (Large Language Models,) machine generated content, etc. For the purposes of this post, I would like everyone to at least know what I’m referring to, so I’ll leave the title as is. I hate hearing about how this technology will double in efficiency or power every year or reach AGI (“Artificial General Intelligence,” basically independent thought) within our lifetimes. If that’s going to happen, it won’t be with these current models. I get the feeling these technologies have reached their peak and everything else is just marketing. For more on this.
If you’re reading this and have thoughts that clash with what I’m asserting, write down your thoughts. Don’t go to ChatGPT. Write them down. Send them to me. I’m here, breathing, writing, making art, and this technology causes me and the artists I love grave harm at an alarming pace. Having a conversation will illuminate things for both of us as long as your intentions are good. All this is to say, if you use LLMs, please consider your impact. If your primary output is LLM images or music or something that takes away from human creators, we can just part ways right here as I’m not likely to change your mind, nor you mine.
6/4/25
-PGB
