This, I suppose, is a continuation of my weekly reflection 2. My last rant about AI made very clear my hatred for the technology, but even with those thousand words out there, I still feel I have more to say (believe it or not). Luckily, today’s class has presented me with the perfect opportunity to once again rage against progress and call it a class reflection. 

If you read my weekly reflection 2 you may know I was severely underwhelmed by Jessie’s presentation. Respectfully, I disagreed with his promotion of AI and felt he lacked perspective on the damage this technology causes in education and beyond. I made my criticism clear in my last post and was not feeling particularly excited to have AI promoted to me once again today. I worried that I would have to sit through the same get-rich-quick scheme I have seen repeated all over the internet the last year while I sat a silent hostage to the attendance requirements and fighting the urge to make loud, incorrect buzzer noises with my mouth. My advice to my future self: Never enter a presentation with preconceived notions. While I disagreed with the sentiment of today’s lecture, overall, I felt the topic of AI was approached with significantly more consideration for the harm it can cause. I didn’t feel like AI was being thoughtlessly sold to us as a cure-all for the arduous task of living but instead was being explained as the experimental tech that it is – as equally flawed as it is brilliant. 

AI as a Threat to Labour

My last reflection mainly focused on my fear that AI would rob the general population of our faculties. In a perfect world, we could hand over “busy-work” tasks to AI in order to focus on the important work, but in reality, we know this is not what’s happening. Students are letting AI write their papers and learning nothing in the process – not about the content of the course and certainly not about writing effective papers. People who consistently use AI as a replacement for doing everyday tasks, schoolwork, or being creative are robbing themselves of the ability to practice those skills for themselves – to actually improve. Short-term this may not feel dangerous, but imagine an entire generation raised with a dependence on AI. 

Now, unfortunately, is where you see my past degree rear its ugly head. In Marxist theory, there is a process known as the deskilling of labour wherein technological advancements render labour more simplified – meaning workers require fewer skills to perform said labour. In his context, Marx worried that a less skilled workforce would become more dependent on capitalism and more willing to accept lower wages (I mean, any old chum could fill their spot on the assembly line, so how could they fight for good pay? They are lucky to have a job at all). Today, I think AI is bringing about the second wave of deskilling. The industrial revolution divorced us from our physical faculties, now, AI will render our mental abilities obsolete. Why am I in school if anyone who knew the right prompt could ask AI to make a lesson plan? Why would schools pay me to teach students? My two degrees and experience are incredibly costly in comparison to a charismatic fellow with a wifi connection. 

This may seem dramatic, it’s certainly not where we are right now. But this has happened before. The Luddites of 1830 must’ve seemed dramatic to the scholars at Oxford who’d never seen the inside of a mill, let alone had their lives dependent on it. History begs to repeat itself, once with machinery and again with AI. Each time someone reaches for AI, they sacrifice an opportunity to grow their skills. Years of AI will atrophy our creative muscles until we can no longer write a word without AI. When we lose those skills, what will our labour be worth? I am frightened when I see my classmates use AI to make their lesson plans. I am frightened when we are told to teach AI to kids. I am frightened when I see every major billionaire arming themselves with AI. History begs to repeat itself, so I don’t feel it’s at all dramatic to worry about how AI will be used to further reproduce capitalism – or to worry who will be hurt in the process.

AI as a Threat to the Environment

In a related fear: AI is ridiculously bad for the environment. We talked about this pretty extensively in class but I will be damned if my minor in environmental studies is worth nothing. Here’s the thing: there is no ethical consumption under capitalism; no action we take is without consequence: we burn fuel when driving to school, increase waste when we buy plastic wrapped food, heck, my computer I’m typing this on is filled with 30 different climate sins. However, the difference between those things and AI is frivolity. We need to drive to school because we have built unwalkable cities. We cannot grow or hunt our own food because there is no more public land in which to do so. Even if I did try and write this by hand, this class, like most university classes, demands that I access the internet in order to participate. There is no escaping these things; the best we can do is be mindful with them.

AI, however, is frivolous. There is no reason to use AI. No pressing demand. Our society is not structured in a way which makes it impossible to survive without using AI (though as it has become more integrated into social media it has been harder to avoid). To me, AI face filters aren’t worth the environmental cost. Using AI to do things your brain can do with no environmental cost is not a mindful or well informed decision, it’s just plain lazy. 

While there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, I am happy to inform you that creation is not consumption. The morality of what comes out of your own brain is entirely up to you and has no impact on the environment. So if you’re looking for a more guilt-free way of planning lessons, try the pink mush in your scull. 

Conclusion

To me AI is a moral issue. I will not “try AI out” as we had been instructed to do for this reflection because it is a morally wrong thing to do. It’s one thing to try and use AI for productive work, but using it without purpose and racking up the environmental cost just for fun experiments is ridiculous. It’s wasteful. 

I will not “be positive” about AI, as we have also been instructed to do, as I do not owe AI that. It’s a monster. The billionaires that own AI are monsters. They will get nothing but my vitriol. I am uninterested in attempting to coexist with AI – however, I do have a solution to our AI problem… Just give me a lead pipe and the access key to the ChatGPT server rooms, and I’ll clear this whole thing up in ten minutes flat. 

This reflection is going long, and I don’t truly expect anyone to read it. In truth, I wrote this for myself. I have been angry about AI for so long. I feel as though each time I turn it over in my mind, I find a new side to despise. Its insidiousness feels obvious to me, yet, in the light of day, people brag about using it. I will never understand how they can’t see it – or why, if they do see it, they don’t care. In the spirit of civility I shut my mouth around them, but it has been cathartic to rave here. One way or another, these words will age – either I will be morbidly predicting the future or tossed in with the lot who were scared of calculators. I hope for all our sake it’s the latter.