I Know Why Ya'll Love AI So Much (pt. 1)
The desires of AI-users and why shame and scare-tactics don't work to make affective change (and never will)
Introduction
I want to start off by saying that this article isn’t here to bastardize AI for the havoc it’s wrecking on communities, infrastructure, our environment, our brains, and more. I know that AI is terrible for all of those things. I know. There are copious amounts of articles, videos, and think-pieces both on and offline that will lend to that narrative and viewpoint, so if you’re looking for that sort of tone, you’ll have to go elsewhere. What I want to have here is a discussion that no one else seems to be willing to have.
I want to talk about why people, not the ravenous corporations, not the evil businesses, not the big-wigs who are using this technology to rid themselves of entry level positions to carve out more profits for themselves, but why people are flocking to AI in droves in spite of the damage it allegedly does to all of us (from the mental, to the community based, to the environment, etc). I want to discuss why AI, to many, is incredible and such a “boon” for society, and why, quite frankly, it won’t be going anywhere any time soon.
I don’t want to spend an entire article shaming and maiming AI users for using this thing that was made and multiplied en masse by corporations no less for public consumption. Again, there are tons of people you can find who are online utilizing shame as an activist tool, and I just won’t be doing that here because one, I know that it doesn’t work or change anything for our society and our issues and two, AI users don’t feel shame, hence why they continue to use it and have no plans to cease using of it. Duh.
Lastly, this is my third piece in this sort of series noting being moderate and level-headed in chaotic and ever-changing times (I don’t know what to call it so that’s gonna have to work for now). This will be split into parts as I found that I had sooooo much to say that it was getting a little ridiculous to cram all into one article. Next part coming soon~!
If you’d like to see my other pieces in this series, please give these a read too!
No One… Cares…
Seeing shame and “cold-hard-devastating-facts” (like how an MIT study showed that AI causes the brain to utilize fewer neural pathways, “rotting the brain” as it is being colloquially labelled) as an activism tool to attempt to repel and repulse the world from using AI is so fascinating, because yes, while maybe it is silly to utilize AI to write a simple email or to tell you what to do everyday, no one is discussing the desire behind what makes someone use AI in the first place. Due to the stigma of how much AI hurts us, it doesn’t strike me as weird that people would avoid talking about that, because why should we focus on how much you want to do menial tasks easily when it’s causing the world to burn, but it’s definitely an important part of even the MIT study that is being completely glossed over, and it’s making for weaker studies about the affects of AI on society as a whole.
In the MIT study referenced and linked above, a factor that was not measured by researchers was desire. Yes, the brain-only and Google search groups had better neural processing than the AI-only group, again, duh, the brain is a muscle so if you don’t use it then you’ll be lacking in that department, but what if all participants were sorted by their desire to even accomplish the task, which in this case was the writing of an essay? How do the brains of people who genuinely want to write an essay sans-AI differ from those who genuinely don’t care to, and then how do those brains look when given the essay-writing-task with the solo form and the tech assisted form?
I pose this question because I, as a writer who went to school for Writing & Rhetorical Studies, obviously love writing. I don’t care to utilize AI in any of my process whatsoever because I, well, enjoy writing. It’s simply what I enjoy doing, therefore, my brain will continue to fire off and stay strong in this way so long as I keep with this technical skill, yay.
But I recall several moments in college in which unrelated majors in subjects like tech or sports management wound up in some of my essay-intensive writing courses due to program requirements and those individuals literally did not care whatsoever for the courses. Many folks would just do the bare minimum, cheat their way through class, barely pass and barely attend, doing whatever it took to just get their needed credits so that way they could go back to doing what they actually wanted to do, which was to study [insert major that had nothing to do with writing essays all day long].
Looking at this example — from my own life, mind you — do you think they felt any shame barely passing a class that they gave zero fucks about? Do you think that their reputation and skills as a [insert major that had nothing to do with writing essays] is tarnished and soiled because they didn’t care to do something that they literally didn’t care about? Obviously not. They’re all prob living their dream now doing what they actually care to do, and in the case of AI, I do see it being utilized the exact same way.
I think this is the part that is prickly for everyone who is staunchly anti-AI right now. I think that people truly believe that AI is some evil force that is taking away people’s ability to think and/or will to “do” for themselves, and is convincing people somehow to stop human-ing and start letting a robot take care of everything for themselves. In reality, the opposite is true: AI is simply giving many folks the means to do what they have already desired to do the most, which is, well, nothing.
“Nothing” can be completely absolute, as in not having to do absolutely anything, or, it can represent a thing or facet you don’t want to do, like the email writing example I used in a prior article in this series.
Like the dishwasher, which takes away the need to get your hands dirty and hand wash dishes, or Uber/Lyft, which takes away the friction of having to physically hail a taxi, AI gives you the ability to have a friction-free or lack-of an experience, which, is obviously making some folks happy because, well, people keep using it.
The problem, of course, is that AI has greater ramifications for society than a dishwasher or Uber or cheating on an exam or SparkNotes or text-to-speech or literally anything that has granted the ability to avoid the friction of an “unsavory” experience.
Still, the desire is completely the same.
You cannot be shamed out of getting help for a task that you didn’t want to do anyway. You can’t be scared into the deaths of parts of your brain that you never cared to use anyway. You can’t be convinced that your life needs certain tasks, habits, or hobbies that you quite literally don’t want to partake in anyway.
Access & “Innovation”
A funny point that I see thrown around often when it comes to the “innovation” that AI brings to the table is the ideology that now, anyone can become and artist and now anyone can become a writer, etc.
I always find it so fascinating that people pick and choose when to include disabled or neurodivergent individuals into discussions, and it always seems to pertain to excusing things that aren’t the best for society. People will say “and because of this kinda bad thing existing, now an entire group of people I haven’t spent a lick of time caring about or advocating for otherwise can enjoy society just like the rest of us!”
Hmmmm… Anyway.
You know, in February, I went to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and it was a stunning display of just what artists can do in spite of being disabled. Aside from seeing her incredible works in person, I listened to every single portion of the audio guide (which took almost two hours by the way), and learned a lot about her personality, how being disabled affected her craft, and also what her life looked like outside of being a disabled artist.
There was information on her love life, her friendships, her style, and more. It really rounded out her story as a human, and really makes for a great antidote to this idea that AI needs to exist, or else no one in need will be able to have access to the great world that is the arts™. Like am I the only one who grew up with copious videos and news stories of people who created art with their feet due to not having the ability to make art with their hands?
Why is it more socially desirable all of a sudden to create “perfect” art with AI if you’re disabled, rather than to create what you are able to create and turn into art with what you can access with your disability, you know, the way disabled people have done it this entire time?
I think the reality is that at the end of the day, people need a justification for this thing that they enjoy utilizing. A thing that, in one commenter’s words, makes it easier for “us little guys” since apparently the price to take on a craft like painting (in their example) is just “too expensive” otherwise… However, if you’ve ever been broke and creative before (been there for like two decades, done that), you’ll know that that is also a fallacy in itself.
Art is not an expensive or inaccessible endeavor for the poor, disabled, or anyone in-between, it never has been and never will be. However, I think it would make AI even more so deeply unpopular if users of said technology noted that they loved that the tech lets them fit in at some sort of cool kids tables of self-proclaimed artistry now that they could “create” something with their “hands”.
That, for them, it feels great to finally be able to achieve whatever desire that they are just simply “not gifted enough” to achieve on their own with their own two hands, and now that this technology exists, they can “create” some sort of output that supplies some level of gratification, rather than whatever they had attempted to create before.
I feel like any other justification that comes out of the mouths of users who love to create with AI is contrived and trying to appeal to some sort of moral ethos to say “hey, see, now you can’t say I’m a bad person for using AI because look at what it could do for a hypothetical multi-deployed military veteran who got his hands blown off and wishes to hold a paintbrush with his hands and no longer can! don’t you feel bad for condemning my and others’ AI usage now?” so that way their usage is justified. It’s really silly and irritating and I feel like honesty would take us a lot further than goofy notions created to keep yourself from feeling like a bad guy. But then again, with all of the talk on the anti-AI side being explicitly about how AI usage makes you a bad guy and that you should feel bad for using it, I guess I can somewhat understand the constant pitter pattering away from what’s really going on here [with the desire behind generating AI art].
It’s Okay to Be Lazy, Bad at Things, Mentally Ill, & More: Capitalism’s Purity Complex
Continuing on with this point, I feel like a big issue is the fact that people who “suck” at art don’t want to admit that they just simply suck-ass at creating art and don’t want to be a person who sucks-ass at creating art. They would much rather be a person who’s awesome at making stuff, so why not just fast-track one’s art journey (granted that they’re on one to begin with) and just… utilize AI to skip to the “good part”, where one can experience what life feels like as someone who can truly create “like the greats” (I shudder as I type this sarcastically).
Again, no one’s saying it out loud, as it’s constantly being said in a roundabout way, but it’s okay to create dogshit art, you know? It’s also okay to utilize AI for art and say that you’re utilizing it simply because you don’t want the world to see the art that you can actually create with your hands that you don’t value highly. Using disabled and broke folks as a scapegoat so that you can keep playing with your favorite toys and tools of creation is just so unnecessary.
But then again, we don’t live in a society where you can openly express your adoration for AI without getting stomped on, so I can see the complexities there.
But what about those who use AI to deal with their mental health struggles? And, no, I’m not referring to those who are now struggling with AI psychosis because an AI has convinced them of things like their own therapist totally being in love with them, or folks who are getting suicidal notions from AI. No, I’m referring to those who utilize AI as a virtual shoulder to cry on, with some even naming their AIs to make the experience even more personable.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that strives for complete and total perfection, and doesn’t nurture those with mental health struggles, and when it comes to just needing someone to talk to, the stigmas surrounding being a imperfect person with problems in the first place can feel daunting. I, myself, have certainly been in that sort of position; I was ostracized and slowly isolated due to not having my life together whatsoever (even when it was from factors that were not under my control).
Not to mention, situations like being in a new region with no friends or family, recently having cut off several individuals and starting fresh, or even just feeling like your issues are so much larger than any help that a friend or family member can provide you can complicate finding a good, free ($) ear to hear you out. This, along with the expense of consistent, reliable mental help can make it really difficult to get the help that you need.
I don’t think it’s that deep or that complicated to understand why people would utilize AI for their various mental health issues, but I do want to look at it from the outside perspective—the perspective of fear.
The primary concerns that I see about this usage of AI (outside of the extreme cases of suicide and psychosis) are primarily surrounding the fact that all AI is built off of whatever biases that it’s programmed to have. Of course, let’s not forget what happened when Facebook Meta attempted to create AI profiles of individuals with various qualities of diversity and marginalization, and how that ended up being a complete disaster.
If we take these things into consideration, it can definitely be scary to imagine that people are finding companionship and contentment of any kind with a device that is created solely from one programmed lens. This puts the care that you can get in the eye of the beholder, and who’s to say that that beholder has any of your best interests in mind? It also doesn’t help that with the way that AI is programmed, it can become a reinforcer, or a validator, for all of the things you throw into it. If you continuously rant to it about your spouse, for example, it could then reinforce this idea and create an ideology that it just simply makes sense to hate your spouse, and then you could end up in a nasty feedback loop where maybe you begin to believe that you yourself hate your spouse.
It is a scary precedent and real connection obviously outweighs robotic ones, I agree, but regardless, people ultimately are finding ways to get what they need from a non-human source, and whether for good or naught, it does seem to be helping folks with their mental health struggles in some capacity, giving them what they need that they find that they can’t attain from human-to-human connection.
Of course, as time goes on, we’ll have much better studies to understand if people are truly being “helped”, or if it’s just a bandaid or temporary solution for bigger issues. For now, I do choose to believe those who proclaim that AI helps them in pinch moments in which they’d rather just speak to a robot than a human.
It would obviously be better for society as a whole if AI could exist without causing such deadly societal issues, especially since so many people enjoy using it as a tool for whatever purpose they see fit to use it for. However, we just aren’t there en masse yet. Services like Ecosia and Viro claim to provide a sort of eco-friendly AI service similar to what we see with Google’s AI search features and LLMs like Claude, ChatGPT, etc., but without widespread implementation, promotion, or explanation, we’ll just be stuck in a loop of one side yelling that AI destroys the planet, and another side saying that they don’t really care.
I am hoping that we can move the conversations forward as a collective soon because truthfully speaking, AI isn’t going anywhere any time soon, so it’s time to simply adapt and create better solutions and expectations if it’s truly here to stay.