I have recently had a chat with a friend about AI. She loves using AI and uses it in manifold ways in her private life and especially for her business. To search and get questions answered, for content inspiration, to discuss her business plan, to write and edit, etc. Whereas I’m slightly different. I haven’t used AI at all for now, though I find the science and technical side behind it quite fascinating. Nonetheless, my pile of arguments against using AI has grown, while staying informed about the subject matter in general.
Anyway, when I talked with my friend recently, she had just sent me a link to an online space where you can teach AI to become better. So basically, you join that space and chat and use the AI to make it better on purpose. Then, I replied something like “The hell will I do and type in there my precious texts to make it better. It should better stay worse than human creations.” Whereas my friend said, she thinks AI’s work is already better than human’s work, which was the point where I thought, I need to write this blog post.
So, here they are: the reasons I’m not using AI (and if I could, I would write a code that keeps AI from my website to learn and use my content, but that’s sadly incredibly difficult. Something like Harry Potters magical coat that makes me invisible to it, would be great.)
Note: It’s a long blog post.
NO. 1 – I have a brain
Let’s start with the most uncommon one, but I believe I have a brain and I’m capable of using it. It even demands to be used. I ENJOY using my own brain. Many business owners use AI to shorten things up, to get inspiration. They use it to get synonyms to write better texts, to get more content ideas for marketing, to be faster and better (supposedly), to get knowledge they don’t have in an easy way, to grow their business faster.
I receive several newsletters a week by fellow business owners, mentors, coaches, experts in their fields whom I trust and SO MANY of them have written in the past, that they like using AI as their sparrings partner for ideas, to enhance their ideas, give them a special twist, because at least the AI knows about their business at this point.
In my eyes, it’s just a symptom for the lack of human interconnection and communication, as business peers can be such good and valuable sparring partners. Also, it shows that you’ve fallen for the trap of hustle culture / scaling AF / capitalisms quick growth and that you’ve stopped trusting yourself and that it’s fine to not know anything at any point.
Make it S L O W, on purpose, and you don’t need AI.
I believe that when you allow yourself to live slower and to have a slower business approach, and when you trust that your knowledge and way of doing things with what you have right now is still alright, then you don’t need AI. While when you lack inspiration, or need it to improve your texts or anything, then no AI will make these better in the long term. Learn better language and writing through WRITING ON YOUR OWN, through thinking yourself, through putting yourself in an environment that helps you get inspired. Use your own brain, even if it takes longer.
NO. 2 – It’s bad for the environment and uses way too many resources
That one is a biggo! For AI to work, we need huge data centres and a lot of energy to keep it running. It uses resources like water, energy, rare materials, and space (land). In a report by the Yale University it’s estimated that by 2026 the total amount of energy needed to run data centres is as much as Japan uses in a year, all-the-while a hyperscale centre may be as big as 2 million square feet or roughly 1,85 million square meters or, for someone having grown up on a farm – it’s 185 hectares or 457 acres. You could produce a lot of crops on this space.
Also, according to a newspaper article from the Washington Post (it has great graphics to explain the impact of AI!), an equivalent to a 100-word email written by generative AI consumes a bit more than 500 ml of water each time and as the water to cool down data centres needs to be very clean, it’s basically competing with water for human consumption. While climate change is rising, fresh water will be a scarce resource nonetheless, so protecting its use is important. The article also states that the energy it takes to write a 100 word email is as much as running 14 LED light bulbs for an hour.
It’s water, it’s climate change, it’s resource that we need elsewhere.
So, are you willing to waste this much energy and water, just because you’re lazy? Just because it’s easier? Our technology focused world already has a big impact on climate change and the world’s resources, mostly because of systemic issues and rich people not caring at all, but not using AI is for sure something you can do to help slow down climate change.
Besides, many of these numbers are either estimates or current numbers that had also been manipulated by companies in the past (see articles). The use of AI will likely grow in the future, which means it will need more resources, also when it comes to rare materials or land. What made me think heavily, especially about the energy use, was that last autumn discussions about a (relatively) big solar park constructed on fields straight behind our village had been risen, and though I think we need more renewable energy sources, I don’t want a black glass space on one of our beautiful hills behind my home, just because our hunger for energy is ever growing.
So, no I won’t use AI and kill the world through it, just because I’m hustling, because I’m lazy, or else.
For more info on what I’ve written about, look at this text and this one. Both are great! If you’d like to know how to set up a more sustainable art studio, just follow this link.
No. 3 – It gives money and power to the wrong people
The biggest AI’s and data centres are part of companies like Google or Microsoft. Yes, I use both of them. A lot even. I even have a Microsoft 365-family subscription to use their products because: they just have great products. But I don’t want to support them even further. I’m so done with rich people getting even richer and manipulating us through technology to drive money towards their companies and purses. AI will give them even more money and even more power and we’re witnessing right now what rich men like to do. I don’t want more of that.
No. 4 – I’m a creative. I can do it myself.
Well, do I need to say more? I’m practicing creativity, which means I’m solution oriented, finding new ways of doing something, having ideas and being inspired. I can live my life and have a business very well without AI. Humans and businesses lived and worked very well without it before, I don’t see why it should be any different now?
Repeat after me: I’m a creative. I can do it myself.
No. 5 – It’s good for your brain to keep learning and find solutions.
Our brain is wired to finding shortcuts, making tasks easier and saving energy, because thinking and problem solving and remembering use a lot of head space and energy. So, it’s likely for anyone, especially when you’re short on time and feel like you’re not able to manage the amount of problems, questions, tasks and demands you’re facing, to seek a shortcut and AI is a very comfortable one. However, using our brain, having to solve complex, new problems again and again, as well as remembering facts and storing memories are all important for staying focused and having a healthy brain as you age.
We’re living in such a fast-paced world already, and the use of social media also takes it’s toll on our brains, which feel ever more overwhelmed, so using my brain and keeping it flexible and healthy (which is also influenced by what you eat, but also through you’re habits and how you use it), is important. I want to keep learning and remembering what I’ve learned, I want to be able to solve problems, find solutions and I want to keep my brain working as I age.
No. 6 – I want to support writers, bloggers, journalists, authors, artists, designers, crafters and creatives
Artificial Intelligence scans, uses and condenses all data (“content”) that it finds online, is taught with or is presented with. By using AI, you accept that the original voice who has once written or designed or crafted what you’re looking for, is nonrelevant and that you’re fine with even copying what they’ve done, just because you’re too lazy to make a proper effort. You rather support an AI and the tech company behind it, instead of the bloggers and journalists, writers and authors, designers and artists or any other crafter or creative, who has worked for sharing their voice and unique way of seeing the world. You don’t honour their knowledge and wisdom, their time spend for improving and learning and the effort they made.
By not using AI, neither for my creative business as a writer and artist, nor in private, I support anyone who creates and shares their knowledge. Instead of asking an AI program, buy a book, subscribe to a newsletter, read a blog, buy art from real artists, buy designs from illustrators, and so on. Support the human not the machine.
No. 7 – I want to know the source and don’t want to copy others
I already touched on this one before and it’s very close and interwoven with No. 6. As someone who has studied and written some very research-intensive papers, but also as someone who writes online and has for a while written in the equine health space and read and cited many studies, I know how important it is to know the source. To know where your knowledge comes from, where what you share comes from, where the words and ideas you use come from. Are them your own? With AI those lines get blurred, and you don’t even know if what you’ve found out is true, or just a wild mixture of facts.
No. 8 – I don’t trust it
With anything that is too techy and belongs to big companies owned and led by rich people, I don’t trust it. AI will (for me) only be as trustful as the companies behind it and I think it’s wisest to not put all your trust into companies like Google, Microsoft or else. I mean, I still use many of their products because they’re good. But I don’t trust their ethics and especially not their ethics around data and AI, because there’s too much money and ego involved.
No. 9 – I don’t fear missing out
I have put considerable thought into whether or not it might be a wrong decision to not learn to use AI, lately. Whether it’ll – at one point later on – be a mistake to not know how to use it. An “industry mistake” even, because depending on how the future develops, I might be missing out on something incredibly important. On something that influences marketing and online spaces and the way I’ll get to work as a creative, as an artist and especially as a writer. Would it be bad for my business and will I stay behind, while everyone else is thriving? Will I be the one who doesn’t know about essentials like AI and be old-school in twenty years’ time?
I don’t know, but I came to conclude (for myself) that I don’t mind, that I don’t fear missing out on this one. That I don’t fear being old-school one day, because using it would just ridicule all my personal ethics and values. I’d rather stay true to myself and miss out on something, than just using it for the sake of fearing the future. And now that I’ve decided upon it, a weigh has lifted and I’m almost joyful for this one thing I don’t have to learn.
No. 10 – I love this world
I don’t use AI because I love this world and it’s very likely that AI will be one of the reasons that will destroy the world as we know it today.
Thank you for arriving down here! It’s a fairly long blog post and I appreciate that you’ve read until the very end. Please note that even though my opinions on the use of AI are very strong, I know it will be of benefit in many fields, but the free, unfiltered and unreflected use of many people is something I don’t think is useful at all.
