I’m just gonna be honest, I’m so jaded about AI at this point.

Along with my interest in Digital Studies, I’m an English major, and the topic of just general writing, when it comes to essays or any work you have to put thought into, has been completely diminished by the existence of AI. It’s frustrating that I have to prove that I’m doing my work, and not using some kind of robot to do it for me. It’s also a slog to get through. Everyone’s talking about it, everyone’s mind is blown, it’s the “future”, but I think it’s a plague on actual… human thought, I guess.

For example, AI art. AI art is soulless garbage, it is not art, and I do not like it. But the stigma against it also has consequences for real artists, who might be falsely accused of using the stuff. There’s also been the topic of plagiarism circling around, with people proposing that they should change copyright laws to accommodate AI. I disagree wholeheartedly with tightening copyright laws, and personally, as an artist, I don’t care that a machine might use 0.01% of my work to interpret a few pixels into the mixing pot of data AI art uses. It’s not worth the copyright legislation that might backfire onto fan-artists, or art that might be mistaken for AI, et cetera. It’s a slippery slope.

I guess my main standpoint is that the plagiarism elements of AI are bad, but I’m more so concerned about the implications that an AI being able to do this has on actual artists and writers. I think that tightening restrictions on AI will have negative consequences for real people, and I’d rather art go unregulated, so it’s a really difficult situation in general. The deepfakes are what most scares me– it’s freaky that AI can do that, and I think, if any aspect of AI should be completely banned, it’s that; at least without obligatory watermarking.

For what it’s worth, I do think some examples of it aren’t that big of a deal. For example, there was this meme a while back where someone made the Mario characters do horrible things, and then people started losing their minds at the person who uploaded it because it used AI images– and like, I get it, I hate AI art too. But I also feel like it’s something we’re gonna have to accept, and I’d much rather people use it for memes where the AI looking weird and creepy is part of the joke, rather than save it for fringe cases where it’s pretending to be someone’s actual drawing.

But mostly, I’m just tired of dealing with it. It’s gross, bleak, bland, and everything anyone ever wants to talk about when it comes to current events. I’ve personally sworn off using it for any reason that’s not pure entertainment, and it will not have a place on this blog unless absolutely necessary. I feel like AI itself is bad, but the precautions people take against it are also doing more harm than good. It’s a miserable situation all around, and I’d like to separate myself from it as much as possible despite my exploration of Digital Studies as a subject.