AI is everywhere. Just a couple of years ago, AI was nothing more than a clunky tool to make silly things. At least that’s how most people viewed it. We all remember seeing the hideous video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. We laughed at AI and thought it was not to be taken seriously.

Businesses, on the other hand, knew something the rest of us didn’t: Artificial Intelligence companies like OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Microsoft were about to change the way the entire world works. Machine learning was moving away from being a behind-the-scenes tool to enable advanced computation to solve real world problems. Instead, we were all being sold the promise of a better world fueled by direct access to AI tools. These systems would be baked into every device we own, every platform we use, every website we visit. As Microsoft and OpenAI said, “We’re going to infuse every application that we interact with, on any device, at any point in time, with intelligence.”

And the powerful, wealthy men behind this revolution were so busy seeing if they could build this thing that they rushed headlong through the question of whether they should build this thing. While promising us the world, the billionaire ruling class is widening inequality.

Now, just to be clear, AI is not itself the problem. The concept of analyzing large amounts of data, recognizing patterns, and producing helpful results is not the reason we choose to stay away from it. In fact, AI tools can do a lot of good:

• They can analyze scientific health data and find solutions to medical questions that would take years for humans to do on their own.
• Um…this started out like a list, but the other claims of AI success might be vastly overstated.

For example, some industry leaders believe that AI computing will solve the world’s climate crisis. But it won’t. At least not without a commitment from humans themselves to solve this problem. And with anti-science and anti-intellectual bias on the rise, no amount of AI processing power will get us to the solutions we need to undo the climate crisis we’ve created.

Even worse, we now know that the environmental cost of running these AI tools is accelerating the climate crisis as well as an energy crisis, leading to skyrocketing energy rates, devastation of rural communities, and more. The International Energy Agency expects worldwide electricity demand from AI data centers to more than quadruple by 2030.

In the United States, power consumption by data centres is on course to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030. Driven by AI use, the US economy is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminium, steel, cement and chemicals.

IEA.org

• Even worse, AI companies are settling lawsuits with families whose loved ones have taken their own lives after relying on chatbots as companions or therapists.
• Professionals, such as attorneys, are relying on AI tools for their work, ignorant of the reality that these tools often just make up content. These “hallucinations” may be resolved in the future, but they have real-world consequences now.
• Most recently, Elon Musk’s AI monstrosity, Grok, has been creating explicit images of real human beings without their consent. “The Grok account has posted thousands of “nudified” and sexually suggestive images per hour. Even more disturbing, Grok has generated sexualized images and sexually explicit material of minors.”

Look, our goal isn’t to be unnecessarily pessimistic or Luddites who simply oppose technological advancement. Doebank Designs isn’t just a grumpy old company longing for “the good ol’ days.” Not in the least.

We’ve experimented with AI tools in web design, content creation, and more. We’ve worked hard to understand the potential for good. But we’re also intensely serious about keeping humans—and the creativity, ingenuity, and empathy that make us human—at the center of everything we do. (And yes, we use em dashes in our writing!)

The AI economic bubble may burst, causing serious financial ruin for many people. Or it may not.

AI data centers may drive up energy use and increase costs for households that simply can’t afford to be liable for the world’s desperate need to automate processes or increase efficiency. Or they may not.

By the way, we haven’t even touched on the data privacy nightmare that is AI. How do you expect your chatbot or AI-powered shopping assistant to help you if it doesn’t know all of your personal info, your habits, your desires, your friends, your bank accounts, and more?

Even worse, authoritarian governments are using AI tools to oppress their people, suppress dissent, manipulate political outcomes, and more.

What kind of social engineering or manipulation by bad actors are we willing to experience in exchange for the ability to make our emails sound “more personal”?

“While this technology can be used for security purposes, such as identifying criminals or preventing terrorism, it also opens the door to mass surveillance by authoritarian regimes or corporate entities with questionable motives. AI systems are also used to collect vast amounts of personal data from social media platforms, online interactions, and other digital footprints. This data is then used to predict behavior, target advertisements, and influence decisions.”

ScienceNewsToday.org

Here’s the bottom line as we see it:

Authors, poets, artists, musicians, and other creatives may find a way to incorporate AI into their work while sidestepping the ethically murky waters of scraping the world’s content without compensating the creators. But that’s doubtful.

What makes us truly human is not our ability to move at extra-human speeds to create unbridled productivity. What makes us human is not the upward flow of money from lower classes to the billionaire ruling class behind the AI boom.

It is our ability to think, to be creative, to love, to express empathy with our fellow citizens of the world, and to leave behind us a place where future generations can thrive whether they are sitting at a computer or around a campfire.

And for all its possible benefits, we believe that AI is an unnecessary distraction from the truly great work of thriving in human communities.