A.I. makes the world less human

An essay using the prompt 'if you could uninvent one thing, what would it be? I chose A.I.

Uninvent one thing: AI


If I could uninvent one thing it would be A.I. A.I. or artificial intelligence has its uses, yes, but most of them do not require the use of A.I. and the main uses of them have a negative impact on society and the environment. The main type of A.I. that I have an issue with is Generative A.I. This includes A.I. models, like ChatGPT, and all image generators. Other than that, the other issue is the way that A.I. is used in places it shouldn’t and as a way to harm people. We have all seen the movies, seen where this goes. How desperate are you for that world? A world where A.I. is in every aspect of our lives. Our homes, our schools, our art. There are so many books and movies that explore what could happen if A.I becomes rogue. That’s not what scares me. What scares me is the more realistic option, corporations using A.I. for everything.

Most corporations have already shown a lack of care for the environmental effects of what they do, little care for their workers or even their customers. Insurance companies using A.I to deny claims, more and more corporations using A.I. to make ads, to make their products. The world is becoming less and less human. There’s even A.I. designed to write these essays for you. The whole idea and advertisement for A.I. is saving you time so you can do better things with your life. A.I. so you don’t have to learn to draw, A.I so you don’t actually have to read a book for class, A.I. so you don’t have to learn. A.I to save you time. But time for what? What are you doing with that time if everything is just done by A.I? That’s what scares me. A world where human innovation is not valued, where what makes us humans is replaceable. That’s what A.I. is to me. A way to make the world less human.

I’m an artist in so many senses of the word, I draw, I write, I’m inspired. I create. The thought of having that reduced to a commodity to something without a story genuinely fills me with dread and disgust. My art is who I am, who I wish I was. A.I has none of that, and it never will. A.I. will never have a story behind what it makes. Just a mess of stolen hard work and stories. A.I builds what is generated off of what already exists and it adds nothing to it, it just takes it and blends it with other things it sees. To me Generative A.I. is nothing but a thing that takes away the humanity in art, writing and even learning. Art has been allowed since the beginning of humans, even before them, the great artists would be horrified of what A.I has turned their stories and their art into.

A world where that never happened, a world where A.I. never made ads, never showed up on clothing in stores, never stole the work of artists. That is a world that is worth living in so much more than a world where we let A.I continue as it is. If I could uninvent A.I. I would. Not just for the environmental impact, but simply for the fact it makes the world less human.