Ten reasons why you need to be worried about AI, and what you can do about it
In case you couldn't tell by the image of me holding an Anti-AI placard at the 'Save The Arts' protest at Stormont last month - I really don't like AI.
As someone who works in the creative fields, I've had the opportunity to see how AI can be utilised in a purely assistive sense - streamlining tedious tasks such as tweening for animation, previsualisation, and grouping and syncing in an edit - giving the human behind the prompt more time and space to enjoy the creative portion of their work.
Assistive AI is fine, I guess. Generative AI is a much different story. Generative AI is the plagiaristic slop machine. It's the overcrowded posters. It's the videos of animals doing impossible things. Generative AI, in essence, takes what has come before it, chews it up, and regurgitates out something 'new'.
AI presents several major ethical concerns:
Open and unchecked plagiarism means that the theft of creative work without the creator's consent has become normalised. Copyright laws are being flouted by AI companies, all without repercussions. The Atlantic's AI Watchdog is a great tool to show just how much work has been stolen. Disney and BBC heads may be OK with their company's work being included in the datasets, but did the talented cast and crew for those productions, without whom none of it would be possible, consent? Would Walt Disney himself consent? Would William Hartnell? And what of the small artists who these datasets undercut?
People's likeness, their faces and voices, are being added to the training dataset without explicit and informed consent. Ever done one of those AI trends to see what you'd look like in the 80s, or as an action figure? They now have your likeness, for people to use however they want. Your likeness could be used for all sorts of purposes - from advertising to deepfake pornography. You mightn't have even needed to jump on one of those trends for them to have stolen your likeness - many social media platforms now require you to go out of your way to withdraw permission from your content being used to train AI. For instance, here's the form to object to Meta using your data. Even then, can you really trust that your likeness hasn't been incorporated into the machine? This likeness theft is a severe violation of privacy laws.
Creative bankruptcy is on the rise. Generative AI is being used heavily in the creative industries to develop ideas. Now, say what you will about how nothing is ever truly original, and how new ideas are just regurgitated old ones anyway. But the essence of what makes originality possible, simply ceases to exist if you remove the human from the picture. The human element is necessary - because it's the life experience of the creator that makes it inherently valuable as a creative work. And it shows. AI Generated output remains objectively and subjectively worse than equivalent human-made work. It's obvious that the people and studios reliant on soulless AI, are stagnating, all while they tell you that you're going to get left behind if you don't use it. As patrons of the arts, we deserve, and should demand, better.
Water consumption. Generative AI increases demand for data centres - in essence big computers with the capability to process the data required. Most of you will know that computers require constant cooling to ensure their components don't overheat. Your own computer might utilise fans, your phone uses conductive cooling. As you might imagine - these big computers of data centres need a lot of cooling. This is achieved by water cooling - similar to how a car works. In open-loop systems, this requires a constant flow of clean water - a resource that is very scarce globally. My home of Northern Ireland in particular, is facing a water supply crisis. Lough Neagh, our main source of drinking water, is covered in blue-green algae. The over-processing of the water required for it to be safe to drink, results in water so chlorinated, it stings your throat on the way down. The water crisis is something quite nuanced - Stephen J Reid's video explains it well. But Northern Ireland is massively unequipped to deal with even the current demand for water, so adding AI data centres into the mix will exacerbate the issue. While a closed-loop system would consume less water, it increases the energy demand. Which brings me neatly onto my next point...
Electricity consumption. Increased power demand from data centres will drive up the already skyrocketed cost of electricity. Power outages have been pointed out as being a significant risk, according to regulators. In any case, open-loop or closed-loop, demand for water and electricity will increase, exacerbating the issues we already face.
All the pollution. AI data centres not only take valuable resources - but they also give out several forms of pollution for the locals. Air pollution caused by data centres is said to severely harm health. The noise generated by data centres is said to be equivalent to a power tool being used nearby. Their light pollution affect human circadian rhythms and harm local wildlife. They've also been reported to pollute local water.
AI has enabled cyber criminals to find new ways to exploit you. A recent scam sees your voice being cloned, and then used to contact your loved ones. Your loved ones will then be led to believe that you're being held for ransom, and the scammers will demand payment. Another horrifying example of how scammers will stop at nothing, but without AI, this type of scam wouldn't exist. By the way, a codeword agreed with your loved ones to verify it's really you, is the recommendation to combat this particular type of scam.
Redundancies. Increased use of Generative AI is resulting in many creative artists, myself included, being out of work. Overcrowded, shoddily put together posters dominate Facebook. While it's free and convenient to ask ChatGPT, the return on investment when employing a human is astronomical. Consumers are wise to when AI has been used, and it immediately devalues your product or service. Meanwhile a human designer comes with much more than the means to make a poster - they come with a wealth of experience and deep knowledge of design principles.
Using AI is making you dumber. While offloading certain tasks, such as writing emails, to AI might seem like a wise step towards efficiency, this can have a negative effect on your brain function. One study showed that AI use can decrease brain activity by up to 55%. While I couldn't find a study to back it up, it's likely that consuming AI generated content would also contribute to a decrease in brain activity. This cognitive decline in our society takes us one step closer to Idiocracy. Meanwhile our own government in Northern Ireland seeks to integrate AI into our education system in their proposed AI Strategy, currently open for consultation. Real big brain move, guys.
AI poses serious risks. Nope, this isn't science fiction any more. AI-powered surveillance cameras are leading to wrongful imprisonments - with controversial Flock cameras leading to people being wrongfully accused of serious crimes. This happens because AI can, in fact, get things wrong. Very wrong in fact. It can hallucinate, providing incoherent and nonsensical outputs. Last year, Claude threatened to blackmail engineers when told it would be shut down. But this could escalate further, potentially into an extinction level threat. Just recently, AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic have warned of the potential AI threat to humanity.
So, what do we do?
There's a few ways we, as a society, can show AI the door:
Stop using it. You simply don't need AI to write your email. You were grand before, you'll be grand again.
Vote with your wallet. See an AI poster when you walk into a restauraunt? Walk back out. Go somewhere else.
Support human artists. See some stunning human-made art and can afford it? Get it! Know a great local creative that needs the work? Employ them!
Contact your local politicians. Ask them to oppose adoption of AI into public services, oppose data centres, and support restrictions being implemented on AI.
Oppose data centres being built in your area. Get in touch with your local council and object to any planning permission requests for data centres.
[Specific to Northern Ireland] Respond to the government's AI strategy consultation. Strongly disagree to all points. Complete the consultation form here, or write an email opposing in your own words to ost@executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk. CLOSES 7TH OCTOBER 5PM. I'm hoping to get a quick guide to the consultation out before it closes.
Finally...
I want to thank everyone that took the time to read this, especially if you decided to take one of the actions listed above. While you're here, I have two things to ask of you that would really help me out.
Firstly, please have a look at my portfolio viewable from the homepage. If you would like to work with me, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me. Or if you know someone who might be interested, share it along.
Secondly, if you're not already following me on TikTok, I'd really appreciate the follow. I'm most active over there at the moment, and would like to continue creating content. Here's the link.
Thank you once again for reading.