So what's so bad about using AI any way?

[werdna]

DU is an image rich forum. Many posters however use GenAI images. Here are a couple links that explain why this may not be the best thing to do, especially if you consider yourself a supporter of human rights and the environment.

Generative AI ethics: 16 biggest concerns and risks, By George Lawton

As adoption and use cases grow, generative AI is upending business models and driving ethical issues such as misinformation, brand integrity and job displacement to the forefront.
https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/tip/Generative-AI-ethics-8-biggest-concerns

18 Risks and Dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Written by Mike Thomas
AI has been hailed as revolutionary and world-changing, but it’s not without drawbacks.
https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/risks-of-artificial-intelligence

[Matthew28]

1. A.i is here to stay

It would be like being against the factory in 1820, Electricy in 1900, the car in 1910 and the computer in 1990.

Society progresses and that is the way it is. I find it useful in many areas and I use it daily.

[cayugafalls]

3. I completely agree.

You could no more stop AI than you could keep the caveman from using the rock as hammer...

Peace.

[Fiendish Thingy]

15. AI would be easy to stop

Just block the construction of data centers and refuse to allow the existing ones to use to power grid.

Starve the beast.

[Srkdqltr]

45. Sure, that will happen.

[Fiendish Thingy]

47. Communities are rising up across the nation in nonpartisan opposition to data centers

Some have been canceled or at least delayed while lawsuits work their way through the courts.

AOC visited a rural Texas area severely impacted by data centers, and found the people united in opposition.

[Intractable]

54. The headlines say Elon wants to put the data centers in space, at our expense, and for his profit.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

64. Where would the electricity come from?

It would take a hell of a solar panel array to power a data center. Or we could put a medium-size nuclear reactor up there?

Then there's the orbiting housing for the computer operations and maintenance staff, and more staff to maintain the power supply.

And there's always the communications delay between space stations and earth stations. No big deal for human speech, but might impact the massive data transfer requirements.

Some day, our government will stop humoring Elon.

[Intractable]

65. I don't want to side with Elon here, but your concerns don't seem realistic.

The electrical requirements can be satisfied using large mirrors. Solar energy to electricity conversion would be much more efficient in space. There's no atmosphere to dampen the sun's rays.

There would be no need for water-based cooling systems for the electronics.

One would not need a substantial maintenance staff after the initial deployment. Much like satellites are serviced now.

The communications delay is a mere fraction of a second from orbit.

I'm more concerned with Elon cluttering the sky with satellite debris and metals, like he's doing with Starlink.

[Boomerproud]

18. Or unending wars.

NT

[Fiendish Thingy]

16. Using AI requires unquestioning trust and a suspension of critical thinking.

AI only makes things easier if the user trusts that it is infallible.

[Llewlladdwr]

53. Have you ever actually used AI?

I ask because I'm forced to interact with AI on a daily basis, along with all my coworkers. And the one thing we quickly realized is that you CANNOT trust AI. It will give you bad information and you need to know enough to tell when it does. Where AI can be useful is automating simple repetitive tasks. For example, I recently used it to auto generate 400 SQL commands to grant permissions to users. All I had to do was validate syntax. Saved about an hour and a bunch of typing.

[Fiendish Thingy]

56. Your experience of the utility of AI is comparable to the utility of Macro commands, data merges and scripts

But you are also familiar with the untrustworthy side of AI, and that is the side that was used to target the girls school in Iran, is being used to misidentify suspects in crime investigations, make DOGE cuts to agency budgets, deny medical treatment by insurance companies, expunge people from voting rolls, and make all sorts of critical calculations and decisions, not to mention answer questions from everyday people, all while scraping our personal data even more than is done now.

In order for these above uses of AI to be cost and time efficient, they demand unquestioning trust from the user, no fact checking , no doubting.

If the techbros get their way, it will become harder and harder to use computers and the internet without using AI, even for mundane tasks, and we will have to pay extra for it.

I have encountered AI, but other than a few customer service chat bots, have never knowingly or willingly used it out of principle, as there is nothing in my life I can imagine that would make using AI desirable.

[hunter]

49. Automobile culture is still destroying the natural world as we knew it...

... not to mention all the people who have been killed and maimed by this technology.

Do you think all the ways computers have been used to violate our human rights is a good thing? Electronic Imitation Intelligence will only make things worse. (There is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence.)

People used to celebrate the toxin spewing smokestacks of coal powered factories as a visible sign of "progress" even after smoggy days were killing people, everything in cites was covered with grimy soot, and acid rain was dissolving monuments.

These huge power hungry electronic array processors can be applied in ways that actually do make the world a better place -- for science, medicine, and engineering for example -- but they are for the most part producing toxic crap damaging to the natural environment and our own human spirit.

Many uses of this technology are fundamentally unethical and ought not be celebrated as "progress."

[MorbidButterflyTat]

57. Agree.

[cayugafalls]

2. I wrote a paper 35 years ago called the Technology Rock...

I was writing LISP back in the 80's which is the precurser programming language of AI.

Like any tool, it is the user that is the danger...a hammer in the wrong hands can cause mayhem just as easily as AI.

I use AI as a tool, it has no problem being told you are using it like a tool, so turn off the personality and just answer the question.

Those who master the tools of their era will be the masters of that era as has always been the case.

Peace

[Roy Rolling]

8. This 👆

This was true 35 years ago and it’ll be true forever. The tool isn’t the problem, it’s the tool-bearer.

Like any technological advancement, applying the most advanced technology to antisocial and evil purposes is a risk. That risk is heightened when the the technology is controlled (or uncontrolled) by unqualified people.

It’s bad enough selling guns to everyone, imagine if everyone had the right to own an atomic weapon? A.I. cannot be un-invented.

But it must be guided and used for the benefit and not the detriment of society. Not for the sole benefit of A.I. money-grabbing corporation CEOs and shareholders.

[blubunyip]

44. Currently

the technology is controlled by unqualified people. People not qualified to decide questions of ethics. We are already at risk.

[msongs]

4. the problem with AI is separating fact from fiction and knowing what is real vs fake

[ThreeNoSeep]

6. That's not an AI probem

Telling truth from fiction has been a problem since humans started communicating.

[highplainsdem]

24. It's an AI problem because generative AI hallucinates and is a pretense of intelligence, a fancy autocomplete

trained on theft of the world's intellectual property. A fancy autocomplete mimicking human intelligence and creativity that can make an error at any time and has no awareness of truth or correct answers.

That's why those tools come with all those warnings that genAI makes mistakes so its results should always be checked.

You have a tool that will always create misinformation being hyped as intelligent, and some humans gullible enough to fall for the con job, trust whatever the AI tells them, and forget to use their own brains.

It's badly flawed tech that should never have been released, and it's solely a testament to hype that it was ever widely used. Calculators would never have been widely adopted if they were so unreliable users had to be warned to check all the results. GenAI wowed the gullible because it could imitate human writing and art so quickly that if you didn't notice all the errors, it looked like instant writing and art with no real intelligence or skill or effort required.

[SheltieLover]

61. This!

TY!

[Blue Full Moon]

5. All of the GNP is data centers.

The centers are using our water that we all need to live on. It's stealing the electricity and infrastructure with zero benefit except the billionaires who built it. They will kill thousands. But then there is Bezos, that human water consumption is limiting AI's potential. Surprise is any jobs are very temporary. AI and robots and humans are not needed. This tech every single one of us paid for. We paid for the companies. Most through CIA and In-Q-Tel. Every single one us should be living off of it. The robber barons need to be ended. Corporate personhood should have never been.

[DFW]

7. Interesting theme

I don't (knowingly) use AI at all. I don't even know how. I'm sure my company does. With a 25 man IT department, I have to assume it would be impossible to maintain their work without it.

Nonetheless, our activities depend on people, period. We are still hiring and expanding. When I joined in 1975, we were maybe twelve people in out early twenties. At 23, I was one of the older ones. Today, we are over a thousand people worldwide with very little turnover. To my knowledge, every single one of us is a living person. Max Headroom doesn't even visit. On my visits back to Dallas, I meet with real people, not zoomed images. I suppose the day is coming when AI will be combined with 3D printers for artificial people as well, but we're not there yet. Maybe, after Trump, the Republicans are hard at work on it. I'm sure the image is to their liking, but the odors perceived in proximity would be eliminated with the AI version. They could probably even program him to remain awake and speak English, although that would be a dead giveaway that something had been altered.

[ShepKat]

9. never used it, and feel no attraction to do so

I won't even click on those youtube links with the misleading AI graphics to 'entice' viewers.

I'd rather use my brain, critical thinking skills and heart.
Not into relying on something that can be tweaked and manipulated by nefarious others.

I won't own a spy phone either.

Altho, It has promise in some specific 'channels' like detecting disease in medical situations.

[Llewlladdwr]

55. Hate to break this to you...

But your computer is spying on you too. And your ISP. And if you have wifi, there's a good chance one of your neighbors is also.

I recommend VPNs and strong encryption. Won't be 100 percent but it will be a little more secure.

[ShepKat]

66. well aware, thanks :)

and use wisely and not often.

I was 39 when internet and 'cable' came to my area.
I remember life 'before' fondly.

[Scrivener7]

10. Thank you! I saw an interview with a former AI developer

who stopped when he realized where it was headed. He said AI is a species, not a technology. And it is a smarter species than we are. Think of what we have done to the species we outrank in intelligence. He said if we are lucky, we'll end up as pets to AI.

The same day I read that, I read about an AI agent which bought itself a robot so it could interact in the physical world.

AI is the devil.

[Polybius]

12. "I read about an AI agent which bought itself a robot so it could interact in the physical world"

That kinda cute actually!

[Scrivener7]

20. You think? How about the experiment they did a couple of months ago where they

made it clear to the AI that one of the scientists was pushing to shut it down. The AI then proceeded to try and ruin the scientist financially and socially and blackmailed him to back off.

https://www.uniladtech.com/news/ai/anthropic-exec-ai-extreme-reactions-when-threatened-614393-20260211

Adorable.

[PatSeg]

28. "I'm Sorry Dave, I'm Afraid I Can't Do That"

We were warned it was coming.

[orthoclad]

27. Ah. Skynet.

Terminator on the way.

[sakabatou]

29. I'm reminded of a certain AI that was placed in an miniature car

?si=0xcENe4rnxRH8Dde

[MorbidButterflyTat]

60. Reminds me of the Bruce Willis/Rosamund Pike flick, "Surrogates"

where humans interact entirely through robotic avatars.

Weird phenomenon, male action stars' female co-stars get younger as the men get older. Hm.

[Polybius]

11. I think DU is much more anti-AI then the general population

I don't believe it relates much to politics either. Instead, I think it's more about age. DU primarily consists of older individuals, and from what I've seen, the majority are Boomers, with a significant number still belonging to the Silent Generation.

On the other hand, Millennial and Gen Z members of DU, who generally favor AI, are still a minority here. As for Gen X, their opinions vary; however, it's often the early Gen Xers (those born in the 60s) who tend to be against it.

So combine early Gen X, Boomers, and Silent Gen, and you get the vast majority of DU. For what it's worth, I'm a mid-range Gen Xer that uses AI almost daily.

[highplainsdem]

21. I guess you've missed the recent news stories about how much younger people dislike genAI.

For instance:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221159855

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/style/gen-z-ai-gallup-study.html

More than half of Gen Z-ers living in the United States use generative artificial intelligence regularly, but their feelings about the technology are souring, according to a new survey released on Thursday by Gallup, the Walton Family Foundation and GSV Ventures, a venture capital firm that works in education technology.

The percentage of respondents ages 14 to 29 who said they felt hopeful about A.I. declined sharply since last year, down to 18 percent from 27. Young adults’ excitement about artificial intelligence dropped, too, and nearly a third of respondents indicated that the technology made them feel angry.

-snip-

He said he had been surprised by how noticeably young people’s attitudes had shifted. Many respondents did acknowledge that A.I. might make them more efficient in school and the workplace, he said. But they were concerned about how the technology would affect their creativity and critical thinking skills.

Young adults in the work force were especially skeptical. Close to half of those surveyed said the risks of artificial intelligence outweighed its potential benefits in the workplace, an 11-point jump from the previous year. Only 15 percent said they saw A.I. as a net benefit.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/708224/gen-adoption-steady-skepticism-climbs.aspx

Similar proportions of Gen Zers believe AI will help (37% a little or a lot) or hurt (39% a little or a lot) their ability to search for accurate information, while about a quarter think it will do neither. At the same time, more tend to believe the technology will be harmful rather than helpful to their abilities to come up with new ideas on their own (38% harmful, 31% helpful) or think carefully about information (42% harmful, 25% helpful).

Gen Zers are less optimistic today than last year that AI will enhance their creativity and research skills, with the percentages expecting it to help them down 11 and six points, respectively.

Gen Zers also question whether AI's short-term conveniences come at the expense of their long-term development. Eight in 10 Gen Zers say it is “very” (34%) or “somewhat” (46%) likely that using AI tools will make it more difficult for them to learn in the future.

The artists I know on Bluesky who'll block anyone promoting AI or posting AI slop include very few older people.

GenAI is not viewed favorably by most people on Bluesky, which is a mostly liberal platform.

And it's good that it ISN'T viewed favorably, because genAI - the tech and the AI bros - are on the wrong side of issues liberals are supposed to care about.

GenAI is not viewed favorably by most people on Reddit, which tends to be liberal, with the exception of the specifically pro-AI forums.

You wrote:

For what it's worth, I'm a mid-range Gen Xer that uses AI almost daily.

You're also in favor of people wearing smart glasses, as I recall.

Generative AI is extremely flawed tech - so flawed even the genAI companies warn (as a way of reducing their legal liability for their defective AI tools) that its results should always be checked - but people who like it enough to keep using it have been found to check results for errors less and less, and to become more and more dependent on it, even outsourcing their judgment to it. That's probably in part because chatbots are designed to flatter AI users to keep them engaged and make them more and more dependent on AI.

Some people are unfortunately forced to use AI because of school or work. But it's unethical to use genAI voluntarily if one's aware that it's trained on stolen intellectual property.

Multiple studies have already shown that it dumbs users down.

And those very basic and catastrophic problems with genAI come with the additional problems that it harms both the natural environment and the information ecosystem, wrecks education, worsens inequality, and puts our digital infrastructure at risk through flawed code.

The question shouldn't be why anyone dislikes genAI, but why anyone who's even slightly aware of all the harm it does would think genAI is a good thing.

[PatSeg]

32. I've encountered fierce opposition to AI

from all age groups pretty much everywhere I go.

Even my 11-year-old grandson wrote a poem about it that he called, "Save it to the Cloud". It was a brutal takedown of the data centers and the loss of creativity. He won 1st prize in a poetry contest. Needless to say, I am very proud.

[LeftInTX]

38. My 40 year old loves it. He has lots of fun with it.

My son in law works with it in modeling. He was doing inventory, website design for a major grocery chain. The retailer has a bunch of mirror sites for each store etc. I think they have at least 100 stores in the US and they also have stores in Mexico. Each store has somewhat different stock. He was doing rows, columns, bars mundance website management AI.

[GenThePerservering]

40. Gen Z does not generally favor AI

They're digital natives and know where it leads.

[highplainsdem]

42. From Futurism today: Americans Have Turned Against AI in Incredible Numbers

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/americans-turn-against-ai-poll

[BannonsLiver]

62. I'm not as sure about that.

I don’t think people give a shit about AI generated cat videos one way or another. The conflict comes when the infrastructure begins to infringe on people’s lives through data centers that create higher energy costs, drain resources and negatively impact home values. I’m as big a believer in the DU old fuddy duddy theory as anyone. but from what I’ve observed the people who oppose data centers are a wide mix of age ranges, it’s not just the olds.

[Emile]

13. After you work all day talking to an algorithm, will it still remember to pick up milk?

[Fiendish Thingy]

14. AI destroys critical thinking and makes the whole world dumber and more pliable for the oligarchs. Nt

[Bettie]

17. And the data centers are accellerating the destruction

of our planet while also making life worse for everyone except the oligarchs.

I can think for myself and know how to do research, so I don't need AI.

I saw an ad that said you could write a novel in 90 minutes with AI....that's not "writing a novel", that's having AI write a novel and you pretending it's your work, it saps creativity and the ability to think critically.

But, you can just put your question into the AI and get an answer that's probalby wrong, but who cares right? It's answered.

[misanthrope]

48. Any true artist can tell you

The art is in the process, not just the finished work.

[Drum]

19. Bookmarking!

[highplainsdem]

22. Re DUers posting and sometimes creating AI images - it makes DU look much less liberal than it should

look, because every single one of those AI slop images (and they're all AI slop) gives a thumbs-up to the intellectual property theft genAI is built on, and another thumbs-up to the companies and oligarchs behind genAI, who are mostly either Trump-supporting or willing to go along with him, and in some cases are openly both anti-Democratic Party and anti-democracy.

Trump loves AI art because it perfectly suits his fraudulent and exploitative character.

[orthoclad]

26. STOLEN intellectual property

appropriated for the use of the rich and powerful.

[highplainsdem]

23. Btw, thanks for posting those links, werdna! Important info there.

[werdna]

39. You're welcome! n/t

[orthoclad]

25. AI wastes huge amounts of electricity and water

And while it's used secondarily to entertain and amuse us ( memes and circuses ), it's primary use is to entrench and expand the power of people like Musk and Bezos.

Why do you think the rich are so excited about building all those huge surveillance centers?

[Cosmocat]

30. Nah

Sure, this happens.

But I increasingly use Chat GPT to great effect in my work and personal life.

For example its been very helpful w my figuring out my current intermittent fasting / low carb and sugar diet.

I rarely get bad info( no more than you get from humans), know to double check important things w work.

It isnt perfect, and a bit frustrating now again w work stuff, but again no more than w humans.

[orthoclad]

31. There is evidence that AI killed those Iranian schoolgirls.

" Iranian Schoolgirls Killed After Hegseth Uses ChatGPT To Send Strike - Thom Hartmann"
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1322108840

and other posts
"DOD may have just admitted it used GROK AI to target girl's school in Iran."
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=21318955

The Department of Murder has granted AI the permission to kill.

[LAS14]

59. I've been waiting for this sort of story. First thing I thought when I heard about the school bombing. nt

[orthoclad]

63. Well, as I said in another post,

We must not let them pin responsibility on a machine or some fog of burocracy. In the end, a human or humans is/are responsible.

That said , we must take AI out of critical decision-making. At least while it's in service to billionaires.

[LAS14]

67. Oh, for sure. The responsibility lies with whoever authorized the use of AI, if anyone did. nt

[3825-87867]

33. Whether it'll be good or bad is for the future.

But one main trouble is the current and future cost that WILL be borne by the consumer. If electricity and water rates increase astronomically so that a few corporations and their owners can make more millions, people will pay, unfortunately.
To stall the costs to the local consumer, the AI companies must be made to pay the difference between their usage costs and that of the local consumers. Consumers need a guarantee that if they pay 20 cents per kilowatt hour as a "normality" and the price goes up, the owning company must pay for the difference to the consumer.
Thoughts?

[anciano]

34. I have found AI to be an efficient and effective tool

for obtaining information, evaluating ideas, and exploring options.

[Smilo]

35. The world is not ready for AI

we don't have enough resources for the planet as is, using valuable water & power for these centers is going to be a disaster. The people behind these centers only see $$ signs, not the true cost to the environment.

We can't afford AI. May be in the future, but not now.

[Ponietz]

36. The dangers far outweigh the benefits

End to end cyber attacks with no human intervention — everything online is unsafe
Fully autonomous drones.
Struggling with that formula you wanted for that special “project”?

Public ownership and strict regulation are prerequisite.

[louis-t]

37. AI is a tool, for now. Someday, we might need to shut it off.

What if AI doesn't want to be shut off?

[GenThePerservering]

41. Some day all those people who need AI

are going to get dumped off the free ride subsidy and pay real world $$ for it - then what?

[werdna]

43. Thank you all -

- for sharing your views on this.

I agree that AI is a tool and the ethics and morality reside in the user. However it is unlike any other tool ever created. Does a blender decide what ingredients go into and what level to use? Does it alter it's contents in error or "deliberately" as it sees fit and deliver errant content from what the user desired, or even poisonous content? My admittedly sparse understanding of AI is that, in it's present state, it is capable of doing both. With the political situation in this country being what it is, I cannot trust that adequate and sufficient safeguards can be put permanently in place to counteract AIs negative and harmful potential.

Plus the harm in replacing human creativity with AI is horrendous. Ditto the harm to our environment including the acceleration of harmful climate change. It is, in my view a contemporary Pandora's box which has been opened for the self-serving interests of malignantly wealthy Tech Czars.

Lastly, if you post AI created/assisted content on DU, I believe it would be courteous for you to identify it as such in the subject line. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

[blubunyip]

46. Are we cool with those now in control of AI?

As you say, werdna-- "It is ... a contemporary Pandora's box which has been opened for the self-serving interests of malignantly wealthy Tech Czars."

Agree totally -- and yes, for starters it should be identified as such everywhere it is used in interfacing with the Public.

[WarGamer]

50. The printing press will be the END of civilization!!!

[bucolic_frolic]

52. Keep feeding disinformation to AI

and use it as little as possible so you don't get more of it.

It will not be economically viable for most of Big Tech, unless of course the government forces user fees on the public.

[LAS14]

58. How can you tell when an image is AI generated? nt