I joke about my aversion to AI. I say things like "I've seen Terminator". That's an extreme take on the situation. It's unlikely that things will ever reach that point. But I said the same thing about Donald Trump doing the very things he is now doing. Make of that what you will.
Anyway, my aversion to AI is based more on the misuse of the tool and the environmental impact. We aren't curing cancer, we're making cute little cartoons of ourselves and videos of Barbie committing arson. We already have tools to do those things! Tools that do not autonomously commit plagiarism and taint ground water!
When AI gets a prompt, say "write a children's book, with illustrations, about divorce", what it does is look through its database and steal bits and pieces of copyrighted works and smush them together. And I'm not even going to get into the data-mining it does on the prompter. It can lead to misinformation because AI does not fact check.
Not to mention that the purported author has poured none of their blood, sweat, and tears into the work. Literally or otherwise. This applies to all art forms and homework.
The processors generate a lot of heat and are usually water-cooled. The water picks up contaminants and is then released, thus sharing them with the world. If it is possible to use a closed system for cooling - some sources say it is not - the companies that operate the AI don't use them. Because they cost more. We're tainting our water supply so we can giggle at bunnies on a trampoline.
I freely admit to being something of a Luddite. I worry that we humans depend on it too much. And it's hard to detect the line between Photoshop and "make a picture of Aunt Suzie in Rome". One has, after all, grown from the other. But art is a uniquely human thing. Better to use this technology for science. Creating an affordable closed system for cooling the processors would be an excellent start. Then march into the battle against incurable disease.
