Generative AI Is Bad: Here's Why
Since it burst into the mainstream consciousness like the creature from Spaceballs, with all the glitz and glamour of NFTs or bananas duct taped to a wall, I have hated generative AI.
Not because I hate technology. I love technology. Do you know how many friends of mine live in my phone? Sure, the internet used to scream at us, but it has made the world a vastly closer place—in a good way so, so often—and I have learned so much from so many folks over the years.
But generative AI is not only garbage—it’s stolen garbage. All the current mainstream offerings are built on stolen words and stolen artwork. The large language models are the database it pulls from—where do you think that data comes from? Spoiler alert: It’s also soylent green. (People.) Sam Altman has openly admitted that properly compensating people whose work was stolen would bankrupt the “industry.”
It’s not an industry. That’s a ponzi scheme for dudebro who cannot talk to girls and who will not get therapy. It’s lauded by people who don’t want to take the time to learn a craft or pay someone else to do it. They want to push a button and be a writer. Or an artist.
But you can’t walk into an OR and suddenly be a surgeon, because you’ve watched every season of Grey’s Anatomy. You can’t suddenly be a lawyer, because you’re a big John Grisham fan. (Have you seen some of those AI recipes going around? Yikes.)
But here’s the thing: Anyone can be a writer or an artist. You just have to write or make some kind of art. That’s the secret. And the learning—the stumbling and the figuring out your voice and what works and doesn’t work? That’s the good stuff.
And I say this as a person who just got a writing rejection this morning. [CURSES!] I say this as a person who has a crisis of “Am I any good?” at least twice a year.
Every writer I know—and every writer you know—has been affected by piracy (see the Anthropic lawsuit). While I don’t think the amount being (eventually) paid to authors is even close to enough, a fee is a price.
The arts so often get sneered at it, undervalued. But when’s the last time you needed some wise words or a bit of beauty? Did you pull them from a poem? Did you snag a line from a short story? Have you ever found solace in a movie, been moved by a painting of a photograph? Cried over a book character dying or an actor’s monologue?
It’s because of the person and the skill behind it. You can’t pull art out of a hat. You can’t make something meaningful and powerful by Frankenstein-ing someone else’s blood, sweat, and tears. (Side note: do not ever feed ANYTHING that doesn’t belong to you into one of those models.)
Plus, it’s really, really bad for the environment. (Google it. It’s ghastly.) Not to mention that if you’re using it to outsource your emails, that’s concerning you can’t even write a simple email. That seems like a problem with your communication skills! Work on that!
As it stands right now, there’s no moral justification for using generative AI. If you have a writer in your life or a painter, you should not feel okay stealing from them. And that’s what generative AI does. Every damn commercial tool.
It’s vile, and yeah, I am going to judge you for it.
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Well, this cover of the Goo Goo Dolls song “Iris” made me cry: