I think I've spoken at length in other places about how I am a very staunch AI hater and everything I hate about how the tech is presented to us today. But I want to take a second to talk about how I became this way, because I wasn't always like this! Oh no, I thought the whole "I fed the Bee Movie script into a bot and had them make a sequel" thing that perpetuated the early era of generative AI was...amusing, but easily ignored at worst.

In fact, if ChatGPT just kinda sat over there and existed, I probably wouldn't have hated it. Hated the people that used it to "well, acksually" people and be annoying? Of course, but that's no real fault of the technology. Technology is a tool, and takes on the will of the people using it and controlling it, and therein lies the problem.

At some point, the entire tech industry saw ChatGPT and fell into a collective psychosis and decided that this, this is the next big thing, and that we must pull out the stops to ensure the prophecy is fulfilled of generative AI/LLMs becoming the next big thing.

I'm sure copyrighted material was already being fed into LLMs at this point (I mean, you also had people willingly feeding it in, like the example I gave above) but once the techbros caught on and wanted to accelerate this, suddenly EVERYTHING public facing was fair game to training their models. They didn't care whether or not you consented to training their AI (that would later be pitched as a replacement for creatives, cool). If you posted a publicly-accessible photo, they took it and absolutely used it for commercial purposes. Again, without so much as asking for your permission.

Things took an even darker turn once the Money People got involved. Investors proclaimed that they were all in on AI (arguably without understanding what it is past it being the trend of the time and believing false promises that it was going to make them Big Money) and that anyone not going all in on AI wouldn't be getting as much (if any) sweet investor dosh. Your company would also be branded as "behind the times" and doomed to fail because you didn't get in when the going was hot. (Hmm, where have I heard this before? Oh yeah. Crypto shitheads screaming "ngmi" at people who rightfully called them on their hubris.)

As you'd expect, this resulted in companies taking the bait hook, line, and sinker, and cramming AI into services and devices that didn't need it. All because investors demanded it, and companies didn't want to be caught with their pants down if these inflated claims of it being the next big thing proved to be true. This is where the hate for me really started, because a lot of these companies forced AI upon you, with no means to opt out. FOMO is a hell of a drug on a corporate scale, ho-ly.

It didn't matter if everything you did with an app or service wouldn't be enhanced by AI. You had some dumb AI bot shackled to you whether you liked it or not. This is not the way it should have been, and this is where my opinion began to turn from neutral to "no, I hate it, make it go away".

When users started complaining about this, once again, consent was thrown entirely out the window. "Just try it, you'll like it." or "This is the future, you better get used to it." Or even worse, "It's here, we can't put the genie back in the bottle, better get with it or get left behind."

Usually when this happens, an accompanying privacy policy update is foisted upon users that carries a clause that essentially says all their data with said service is being logged and used for AI training. Again, without giving users an opt out or recourse short of deleting their accounts entirely. (And even then, some companies retain data, so this isn't even a surefire way to ensure your data isn't used for training!)

You'll notice a trend here: Consent is just gone. It does not exist when AI enters the room in 90% of cases. Companies just foist it on you and tell you to shut up and like it, or leave.

Thought that was bad enough? Oh, it gets worse.

Clearly not satisfied destroying the concept of consent AI boosters began mounting attacks on the creative sector, proudly boasting that hey, you can just use generative AI to make graphics and things rather than getting a pesky human to do it for you! In fact, we're going to go slurp down artists' work without their consent to make these plagiarism machines whilst simultaneously putting them out of work. And worse yet, we'll paint this as good for them! We'll claim it makes art "more accessible!"

(Again, we've heard this before. Same song and dance from the crypto shitheads when they were pushing NFTs as "being good for artists, so they can earn what they're worth".)

It is at this point that my hate for AI hit a fever pitch. I am a hobbyist photographer and I do like to dabble in graphic design, and now they're aiming the slopcannon at my face. And again, telling me I better like it, or I'm an ableist. (I'm not even kidding. I've seen people play the ableist card against anti-AI folks complaining about it putting artists out of work. I wish this was a joke.)

As if that wasn't enough, if you've managed to carefully navigate around AI getting shoved in your face at every turn to this point, well, fuck you! AI's gonna get you one way or another! This time by buying up all of the manufacturing capacity for flash storage, RAM, and hard drives! Good luck avoiding AI if we buy up all the components for you to build your own computers and devices! Submit everything to the cloud, it's now the only affordable option, suckers! 

*takes a deep breath*

This is why--as I've been saying as of late--AI needs a do-over.  As it exists right now, I don't give a toss what good it can do, what practical benefits it has once the techbros move on to their next mark. I don't care about any of it at all because AI companies botched the first impressions so hard by telling me consent is a foreign concept and I need to just roll over and submit, or I'll be left behind forever.

It was this brazen disregard for any kind of consent from the get go that did most of the work in turning me against anything AI had to offer.

If you want me to care about AI? Start over. From zero. Consent needs to be a core concept of it. If people don't want to use it, respect that opinion. Do NOT treat every no as a thinly veiled yes. Do not force it on people who don't want it. And if people don't want it, don't scream "you'll like it!" or "it's the future, get with it or get left behind!" at them. 

Because that language sounds eerily similar to the type of language used in domestic abuse situations and is that really the way you want to come off? (Regrettably, some of the psychopaths who push this garbage would nod yes with a grin across their face because they're absolutely depraved. These people should not be allowed to be anywhere near the helm of a tech company. But alas, this is 2026.)