My big, fat, anti-AI post, once and for all.

There's no ethical way to be pro-AI in a U.S. context. I'm not going to dance around the subject any longer. Stop using AI if you consider yourself anti-capitalist or even just progressive.

An AI-driven data center two miles from my house in East Henrico County, Virginia. Image via VPM via Facebook.

As I’ve said so many times, I’m not really into cancel culture. I don’t hold people’s mistakes against them, especially if they’ve claimed accountability and genuinely changed, and I can tolerate a wide range of opinions. I’m capable of thinking “whoa, that guy’s stance is dumb as hell” and still fighting alongside a comrade. And of course, I think each person is inherently worthy of God’s love and forgiveness regardless of any other factors, and each person on the planet deserves safety and love.

These days, I don’t even do that much “unfriending.” I went through a period in the late 2010s where I was unfriending anyone who was Trump-y or anyone who was openly judgy about polyamory, as I’m posting so much of my real life on these more private channels, and that involves my kids. Later, I started unfriending people I desired to argue with or did argue with frequently — which was more about me, and less about them.

The impulse to argue online is one I’ll never lose, but it’s not something that’s worth my time when it comes to people I actually know in real life. (Or ever, but that ship has sailed.) I’m not trying to “win” against a lifelong 79-year-old homemaker church friend of my dead Nana who thinks abortion is bad; I just don’t need to have them in my life if I never see them anyway. I can wish them well from afar.

However, I did start unfriending one specific group of people in my personal life: people who blatantly, fully, lovingly support AI usage. It’s gross, and it’s even worse when it comes from people who think of themselves as progressive, leftist, or whatever. I get the impulse to do fun things with images and text or to make your dumb white-collar job easier. I, too, have a white-collar job that often kills my ADHD brain and zaps me of any and all creativity. I have many tasks that are annoying.

I’ve been loudly anti-AI for a long time, but I started with a more neutral perspective, if I’m honest. Before I did any actual research, I did a few image generators for D&D characters or making myself, but cuter, or whatever. I used Grammarly for writing. I had ChatGPT write a few cover letters for job applications when I was job hunting — so this would have been about three years ago.

But I’ve since evolved into the angriest, most anti-AI person on the planet, and it’s not going to stop any time soon. (My anger, that is. I think the U.S. version of AI could still be stopped, if some of you hypocrites would stop using it.) The more I research it, the more I can’t believe any of you are actually into it, defending it. You might as well directly defend the U.S. military or any billionaire on earth at this point.

I’m not saying this to be mean to you. I swear. In fact, I sincerely believe if people comprehended the power of AI in transforming and ruining our society — and my life, directly — maybe they’d be a little more mindful. But I’ve been personally subtweeted online three times in the past week on this very subject, so instead of arguing ad infinitum, here are my thoughts.

Let me get ahead of you, because I’ve already heard it all:

“There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism!”

Sure. But that statement is so you don’t shame poor people in rural areas shopping at Walmart instead of at a hippie commune in the Bay Area. And even then, it’s not an excuse. And man, some of you DO use that as an excuse to do whatever you want and not even consider how your behavior could possibly harm yourself or others. There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, but you wouldn’t go purchase and pour thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean. Grow up and live out as many of your ethics as you possibly can. Otherwise, why even bother eschewing an anti-capitalism philosophy?

Stop using this quote as a carte blanche excuse to be selfish.

“But AI is important to my job!”

I don’t want to write too much about my job, because we need me to have this job to survive, but let’s just say I took a pretty big pay cut from my previous salaries to stick with a company that’s anti-AI. Remember that as an online editor and writer, my career is one of the ones most at threat from AI. Not that AI writing, including now-AI-driven Grammarly, is any good for human and linguistic expression. You people sound like annoying robots now.

If your work is forcing a gun to your head to use AI tools and you have to have a job or your tiny little children will starve to death and there are no other options, then okay. But you don’t have to use these tools outside of a professional context, and you CERTAINLY don’t have to defend them. I do not respect anyone who defends AI usage in this way. But I get having to keep a job.

“But Jennifer, you use Facebook/Instagram/the internet or do this other thing and it uses data centers and makes bad things happen too!”

I wish to God I wasn’t using any of these websites, as all of them ARE using AI plus doing other terrible things, but they have been vital in community-building. All my accounts are nearly two decades old at this point, and I do have to use them in my job, which involves reviewing and embedding social media nearly constantly. All pictures of my children, all my memories, and friends and family from all over the world are in these central locations here. This is like a Republican argument against giving people phones: sure, it might be possible to get by without a phone, but it makes their lives nearly impossible.

You might also note I do not use social media nearly as much as I used to, and I used to pay Meta for ads to increase traffic to this Substack specifically, and I’ve stopped. (hell, even Substack isn’t great…) I also install ad blockers, refuse to pay a premium to be a verified user anywhere, and primarily hang out on Reddit and Bluesky these days, which have their problems but are still better than Zuckerberg.

I’ve also switched from Google Chrome to Firefox, from Gmail and Google Drive to Proton, and from Google Search to the No AI version of Duck Duck Go. I’ve stopped doing food delivery services whenever possible. I gave up Amazon for Lent and try to find alternate sellers when at all possible. And — this is the most expensive thing I do — I purchase 80% of my meat from local, ethical sources to cut down on environmental impacts.

Again, ethical tech IS important to me. It SHOULD be important to you.

“AI does good things!”

I’ve heard it all here, from “AI helps my disability and neurodivergence!” (the faux-ableism stance is also an argument for upper-middle-class white people to yell at underpaid UberEats shoppers for not getting the right apples, apparently?) to “AI is helping cure cancer.”

AI is not helping disabled people do art en masse; it is simply stealing from disabled artists who already were doing the work. Do you people actually know any working disabled or neurodivergent artists, lol?

And yeah, I’ve read the studies. I’ve seen some incredible opportunities for AI in the medical field, for instance. If you think I’m uneducated or just forming opinions on vibes, you’re wrong. I saw a study where an AI tool detected cancer cells that doctors and other existent tools were unable to, and that’s amazing.

But guess what? That tool is not available to the general public in any capacity. Thousands and thousands of people will die of cancer this year under U.S. capitalism, some without access to basic medical care, much less the latest tech. AI in medical context, as of now, is just more fucking paywalled bullshit that will only be used for rich people while poorer people continue to have worse health outcomes no matter what.

Here’s a leftist quote more of you should be using instead of just the one justifying your billionaire-worship tools: IF IT IS INACCESSIBLE TO THE POOR, IT IS NEITHER RADICAL NOR REVOLUTIONARY. Thanks, Father Stan Swamy! You would have hated AI!

And maybe China has a “good” AI model tool, which is an argument I’ve seen from cosplay Maoists and other meme leftists. But for the meantime, in the U.S., all you’re doing is lining the pockets of the worst people on planet Earth while simultaneously taking money out of those of the poor and desperate.

Of course, AI is widely accessible to the poor. Just not these supposedly good tools that exist to actually benefit the public. And AI is having a horrific effect on the world — and even me in particular. Let’s go over the downsides of AI, shall we?

Environmental impacts

I’m starting with this one because it’s the one I have the most direct experience with. Virginia has the most data centers per capita than any other state in the country, and they are almost entirely built in poorer areas, which in this former Confederacy capital, is usually highly gentrified. One such data center is two miles from my house, and more data centers are being built… primarily on land that was intended for public usage. I live in Henrico County. There’s West Henrico, where the rich people live. Then there’s East Henrico, where poorer people, and I, all live. Guess where the data centers are built?

In one argument with a polyamorous, decontructionist figure of the exvangelical movement, who hilariously calls himself a communist, he said he “wished” data centers were in his backyard. Meanwhile, these data centers are poisoning the air around me, quite literally. Respiratory illnesses are on the rise. How can you justify that? Sure, data centers exist for other internet things. But they’ve never been built this quickly, this much, or without any oversight whatsoever.

My county voted AGAINST data centers. But these companies with unlimited money are getting around the laws, and state and county officials (mostly Democrat ones!) are ignoring what the voters want, and they don’t even care. Abigail Spanberger, a Democratic governor who has finally convinced me to stop voting for Democrats altogether by having such horrific policies that benefit corporations and cops while ignoring the people who voted for her, has made it easier for big tech to to profit and build MORE data centers in Virginia.

Don’t even get me started on how much my electricity costs have risen. Are you AI defenders and users going to pay my electric bill now? Because we have three incomes and we’re still barely above water. I’m waiting.

These tech companies make promises to open educational programs, help lower electricity costs, or whatever. These are all examples of fake philanthropy that never happen. And I know that for a fact, because I actually live here and watch it (not) happen. (I have to thank Gray Montrose for the work on this topic as the tireless researcher of how all awful these developments have been for my neighborhood. Now THAT’S a person actually doing the work, unlike the AI-defender keyboard warriors arguing with “comrades” online justifying their actions instead of doing any actual activism)

The environmental impacts don’t just end in my backyard, either. This is all documented. You just have to care.

Mental impacts

AI has already been indicted in mental breakdowns and encouraging suicide, as well as murder. Our world is already broken by social media, by our echo chambers and the way we (including me) tend to choose online anonymity over real-life community with all its mess. Meta is particularly guilty with this, but AI makes it even worse. I remember once I saw a tweet that said because billionaires live in a world that’s just constantly a series of their own preferences where every problem can be solved immediately, it must be like being kicked in the head by a horse repeatedly in terms of cognitive impairment.

That’s sort of what AI is like.

If you’re inclined to psychosis, AI has been proven to instigate it. If you’re inclined to isolation, millions of people have fake AI partners instead of real ones, which is ruining how men think of women in particular which is turning out to be dangerous for us.

But even things like people using AI as their therapist, or to help them argue with their partner, really freak me out. You do not need a robot that agrees with you 24/7 as a sounding board or a therapist. You need to be pushed in real conversation with real people. Disagreement drives personal development. Being around human being, working through your own feelings, working through your own issues, and talking to professionals who have expertise. They actually care about you, instead of hallucinating someone else’s word vomit. We need each other more than we need the computer. I promise.

Comprehension and learning impacts

If you have kids in public school, you might know that since COVID, they’ve had nearly unfettered access to Chromebooks and edtech (this is another post on its own) programs have bribed poorer counties and schools with a million different educational programs which teachers use instead of actually teaching. In private schools, kids are returning to low-tech or even no-tech environments, where books and lockers and handwriting are becoming even more important again.

That’s because all these computer programs and nonstop Chromebook usage is rapidly destroying education. Initially, COVID was blamed — but being in a classroom behind a screen isn’t that much different than being at home behind a screen. It was the methodology of learning that ruined children’s comprehension.

And that’s all WITHOUT AI. Using AI? That makes it a million times worse, and my kids (who actively try to avoid AI and are in gifted programs at public schools) see it ruining the way they think. It is damaging their writing and reading skills in a huge way.

Teachers are sounding the alarm. Rich people who send their kids to private schools don’t give a shit what happens to kids in public schools, clearly. Any supposed benefits of AI learning are heavily outweighed by any potential benefits. Gen Alpha created brainrot, and sadly, they are also the most likely to be subjected to it. Education is in crisis, and has been since Reagan or even beforehand. Nobody funds it, and nobody cares what happens to teachers, classrooms, or students. Surveys keep finding how basic thinking skills are being destroyed.

And for those of you who say “it’s how you use AI, not if you use AI!” please know that children do not have the level of self-control that adults supposedly have to use AI wisely. It’s like being brainwashed and having basic functional skills destroyed before your brain is even done developing. In my opinion, people under 25 using AI is like exposing kids to alcohol, drugs, or pollution. And there’s no way to reverse that in a 21st-century world.

But the loss of literacy and comprehension due to AI usage isn’t just limited to children. In my personal life, my heart hurts as I see people I used to think of as being clever, interesting, unique writers, capable of using their own voice to create good articles. Now, all they do is share AI recipes, AI columns, and AI photos. They’re always looking at their phone, but they can barely hold eye contact or hold a conversation anymore. Their vocabulary has lessened and it’s almost like phone-driven dementia. (I’m not just saying that for shock value — I lived with a relative with Alzheimer’s for a bit, and it felt very similar.)

Creative and professional impacts

This used to be the biggest outcry against AI, and now, it’s the one that AI users care the least about. I have no idea why nobody cares what happens to people whose industries are being eaten alive, but that’s where capitalism has reigned victorious: when it comes to our incomes, it’s dog-eat-dog. And lots of white-collar tech dogs are happily tearing apart and consuming creative-arts dogs with their bare teeth right now and showing no mercy whatsoever.

The stolen words, the stolen images, all your dumb generated ideas and recipes and pictures and essays and are from other people. And the little AI summaries in Google are sometimes straight-up lies. In Germany, Google was already held accountable for this — but the company is too powerful, and it won’t change them. (They’re already appealing.) Big names like George R. R. Martin can hold OpenAI accountable in court (okay, you can do THAT instead of writing Winds of Winter) but your average local musician and artist can’t afford that. And all of these AI models are CONSTANTLY stealing content.

What, are you gonna say that writing, drawing, creating, music, videos, all aren’t “real” professions that deserve real income, and it’s okay for AI to use all these piles of media to profit? Should people get “real jobs” instead? Go ahead and join the GOP, you fucking posers.

AI is killing jobs. And every time you use it, you’re contributing to that.

Look, I am angry about AI. That much is obvious. I’ve presented a lot of information here, but at the end of the day, I’m probably screaming into a dark void full of people who will never, ever trade individual convenience for collective well-being as long as they live.

But it’s only because I care so much about how much I’ve already seen these awful impacts in my own life, and how depressing it has been for me to see people I used to like and respect fall prey to the trap of a new, shiny, dangling carrot which will never lead to anything other than profit for billionaires in a capitalist country like the U.S.

I like YOU. Not robot you. I like you with your typos and your failures and your mistakes. I’m a good editor, but I can’t draw for shit. AI could help me, but so could my friends who need money! Sometimes I want to die instead of come up with new headlines at work, but then I remember that otherwise, I’m just leading my brain into a path of being unable to compute or write or create on its own any longer. I want to succeed by my own merit, not someone else’s. I want you to talk to me instead of a chatbot. I want you to become a real person. I don’t want you to lose a sense of your humanity, and all for the tools literally being used to create plans to bomb children under U.S. imperialism, not to mention the creation of child sex abuse material.

Nobody is expected to be perfect. But really, stop and think about if after reading all of the above, it’s still worth it to you.

Because it’s not worth it to me. And if you have to choose between people and AI, I hope you choose people. I always will.

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Edited to add:

Since writing this, I have been unfriended in a fiery way, called “privileged” for following my ethics (despite the fact that I had an entire section about “if you have to use this for professional reasons, at least don’t defend the usage or use it otherwise…”) and accused of “not listening to workers” when the vast majority of workers do not want AI pushed onto them at work or any other capacity, and this is documented… and since AI causes people to LOSE jobs, it’s generally thought of as a bad move for any real labor movement. (This person also called me out on my “made up fairy shit religion” as making me a bad leftist, worse than even AI!) But AI is bad, and you should eliminate or minimize its usage, and I don’t care what you think of that take, because it’s the right one. I’m not “smarmy,” I’m sick of being poisoned in my home and having my income threatened. None of this is personal against you specifically, and if you think it is, maybe you should ask yourself some questions about why it upsets you.

I’m not sure where the “privilege” of having my career and industry constantly threatened, having my electric bills go up dramatically, or having my kids’ air poisoned is, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a privilege to me.

But more than that, I have gotten tons and tons of messages thanking me for my take, and have heard awful personal stories of people going through psychosis as a result of AI usage and ending up in a mental hospital, as well as people who are basically being forced to use it in their jobs, and those like me who have lost friends because those people would rather defend machines over human beings. People in the education sector were especially horrified by the effects of AI, and that’s no coincidence, in my opinion.

At a certain point, we just have to care about the impacts of our actions here. And since those sorts of messages greatly outweighed the negative ones, I believe I’m on the right track. I can’t do it alone, so thanks for those of you who are working to fight the usage of generative AI and large-language models under U.S. capitalism.