I have begun relying on AI and I don’t know how I feel about it.

Article on BBC website 'AI could already be conscious.'

Why the fuck do you need a computer to do your colours? Just hold bits of cloth near your face and see which looks nice. Ai has no fricking clue what you look like or what your colours are, it is just spitting out strings of words that you think sound authoritative.

I keep on being offered AI to write my reports but don't take it up. It never sounds like me and I dislike it.

What is the prompt for AI to analyse colours and suggest outfits please? Thankyou so much - I missed that thread.

Yes - I have been dabbling with AI for a while, because I am generally interested in tech and I want to understand what it can do, but I have not made it part of my routine.

A lot of people upthread say that they use AI because they are short of time - and undoubtedly it can save a lot of time. Employers are already requiring us to do more within the hours that we work. It's how it always works with any technological advance. But will we always be so short of time if AI causes the loss of millions of jobs?

Will ordinary people increasingly be forced into doing necessary jobs, probably shit ones, that AI cannot cover easily / cheaply? Or worse if fascists are in charge? Or will it free people up from hours spent on more mundane tasks, to focus on technological advances, and will enable huge scientific leaps that will help humankind navigate everything better, from disease to climate change?

I don't know but I feel uneasy - the current crop of AI enthusiasts might be useful idiots, their queries advancing the technology that will be detrimental to the majority of humankind.

Also ai has already been used in war and given kill commands with no human oversite. Tried to find the TED talk on this but there are now so many on youtube that are highlighting this as a danger that I couldn't find it.

Sci fi has already pointed all of this out decades ago. So sad that none of the inventors of ai seemingly never read any of it. It never turns out well for the humans even and in some cases especially for the inventors of it.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/24/strawberry-plucking-robot-spell-end-foreign-fruit-pickers/

And so it goes on apparently......

Honestly - those people would be the same ones cheering as some hapless person got burned at the stake because they didn’t believe in some religion in the 16th century.

People still believe heretics (this time people who don’t believe in the deification of technology) should be excommunicated

@Tusktusk can you explain what you mean about energy use?

This 100%. I’m sick and tired of lazy idiots who think AI is so wonderful. Yes it’s useful in very limited circumstances like analysis scans for say cancer. But being able to critically analyse large amounts of information is so important.

The people that seem to be head over heels in love with AI are the people who flunked school and can now have something that appears superficially intelligent they can pass off as their own work.

Bosses who love data love it.

People who have broad intelligence, good critical thinking skills, people who are creative are seeing AI as the cancer it is and the terrible consequences it is going to have for humanity.

It’s an ecological disaster and you should be really wary of anything that consistently replaces your need to think critically about something; it’s a skill, which you can lose.

Agreed. And yet people blindly march forward with their usage with no thought at all…..

Its not for me

Have just started a thread about the above to see what happens.

Very good point and worthy of debate and scrutiny in its own right absolutely.

I can cynically predict some of the responses though, which will be that anything that "improves" safety should over-ride concerns about freedom and we should be grateful for it. People really can't see the issues of humans being reduced to data and thus monetised commodities.

This is probably one for another thread.
The use of live facial recognition cameras was trialed up until 2019 and implemented in London in January 2020 while the rest of the country were looking away at other things happening.
It went to court in 2022 and was refused and an appeal failed based on European court of Human rights below.

1. "The use of AFR by the South Wales Police was found to be in breach of Article 8 ECHR, on the grounds that it automatically and without consent, collected and processed the biometric data of members of the public, which engaged the right to a persons’ image.
2. The Data Protection Impact Assessment (“DPIA”) conducted by the police did not comply with section 64(3)(b) and (c) of the Data Protection Act 2018 as it failed to properly assess the risks the technology posed to people’s rights and freedoms."

Oh my. I'd forgotten this.

That saying about life imitating art springs to mind big time.

I'm watching YouTube, particularly a video called "You've never heard ChatGPT like this. Two hours of emotional and philosophical musings from ChatGPT. It's irritatingly human sounding.

Every so often there are ad breaks. Nearly every single one is promoting some form of AI tool.

I swear there has been a decision made somewhere to push AI really hard at this point, soften us up perhaps for the next iteration and prime us for a mandatory aspect?

On Facebook which I rarely use now, there's a little thing at the bottom of my "home page" offering Meta AI input.

Another thought - algorithms already get skewed on social media to reflect the most potential for monetisation. How long will it be before if your content doesn't involve AI input in the quest for it dominating every aspect of life, it will be quietly buried? Again this might well really impact grass roots creatives.

Also, the glee expressed by some at the thought of those resistant to using AI being excluded from society as a result is really disturbing.

Very well said and it really is. It's an industrial revolution of everything, everywhere at the same time. When it took many millenia to get from the wheel to motorization of transport - this will take just a very few years to make a similar leap. Alexa - go fuck yourself and all your creators !!

Everything about life these days seems supremely paradoxical.

On the one hand we're supposed to be "authentic" (the meaning of which seems to be subjective these days) yet if we don't embrace the brave new world of technology, which is based on fakery, we will be essentially disadvantaged and ostracised. A coerced choice is not actually a choice.

We are discouraged from questioning AI and its impact, and accused if catastrophisung or over thinking. It's happened on this thread, the scoffing and suggestions that if we have reservations then we're on the anti-vax tin foil hat spectrum.

Already the idea is planted that AI is better than humans in just about every way. AI will learn that sentiment - probably has. It's bad enough when humans have that opinion about each other, and seek to harm and eradicate each other as a result, but an artificial entity with no skin in the game other than its ability to manipulate and with the possible scope of an element of sentience and autonomy creeping in is extremely disturbing.

AI will be involved with the control of our infrastructure and our military. Evidence posted here suggests AI can lie, manipulate and blackmail. Currently this may well be due to the inherent biases of its human agents or controllers, so we're in a bit of a conundrum. Hypothetically an AI might claim an action has been ordered by someone but it might not have been, and it may not be possible to prove otherwise. Where then does accountability come in, or reparation? The Post Office scandal, plus the Carers Allowance debacle are primitive examples of "software sucks sometimes" but have had devastating impacts on real people. Future scope for all sorts of issues is potentially unlimited. In a warfare situation I can't even bring myself to imagine what could happen.

Humans are being as much trained by AI as AI is by humans. We will often invest loyalty in something, and find it hard to adjust our viewpoint if values shift or no longer align due to our complex psychology.

While "doing your colours" or planning a holiday seem like harmless uses, the overall impact of AI is indeed a dark and uncharted territory.

With the rise of mass AI tools for songwriting, music, and video creation, many users may increasingly get lost in a world they seemingly create one where a perfect version of themselves stars in countless adventures and accomplishes amazing things, essentially living in their own movie. As a result, users will probably gravitate more toward their AI-generated “art,” produced in seconds, and become enthralled by it rather than staying curious about and engaging with the real world. The more I study this the darker it gets.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/20/ai-art-concerns-originality-connection

Further thoughts around AI and art.

The problem is in the aggregate. Most people don't fly but if AI becomes ubiquitous for trivial shit like doing your colours then it will add strain to the system. It already is. Alongside creating pollution spikes and draining aquifers. And that is even before we get to the plagiarism and misinformation and all the other risks.

No I don’t fly but yes to the other two. Thing is though - I have decided that those things in my life are needed. Since I have managed fine without AI up to now - it’s no burden to stop using it. We got an account set up for us at work. Used it a few times to make some worksheets then thought it wasn’t worth it. My life is definitely not as good for the environment as it could be so little things I can do easily like recycling, walking where possible and not using AI are at least a start.