AI Yai Yai
AI is bad for the environment, for our resources, our minds, our ability to connect with each other—with reality, and apparently for poetic types with strong relationships to the em dash. There is a lot in the world that will undoubtedly be improved by the proliferation of artificial intelligence: scientific advances beyond imagination, medical wonders, solutions to problems we don't even know we have yet. But already, our art is suffering; our students aren't learning; industries are hiring less; our water sources are threatened; energy costs are through the roof. We may be resilient and push through to a new way of life and maybe (though seemingly unlikely) it will be a better way of life than we know today. But I don't have to contribute, and I won't.
I don't intentionally use AI, ever. My work keeps pushing it on us, and I've ignored every prompt. I switched to Ecosia as my default search engine and turned the AI responses off. Wherever there is a choice, I choose the one that's not AI. But I'm constantly plagued by the worry that something I'm doing is related to AI. Is the auto-correct on my phone or in this text box AI? (no) Is my Alexa device using AI? (I don't think so. It's an older model, but the new ones do!) In my search for a writing job, I have to make sure there's no mention of using AI in the writing process.
Let this serve as my disclosure: if I'm using AI, it's because I don't realize it or I don't have a choice. If that changes, I'll let you know. But I will NEVER use AI to write—and I'll keep my em dash, thanks.