Generative AI and its Consequences
an editorial from VOODU.XYZ
Since the original iteration of this page, I’ve rethought my stance on Generative Artificial Intelligence. The issue has continued to evolve even in the short time between then and now. You can find my original article here.
I have been an internet user for the majority of my life. The internet was around for about 5 years before I was even born, and it took me about 5 years before I was intelligent enough to use it. I have fond memories of personal websites, flash games, and early Youtube. When Facebook entered the scene, everything started to change. Facebook fostered the homogenization of the internet, and here we are in the 2020's, where people are using the same handful of social media sites and access to information is becoming increasingly difficult (read Dead Internet Theory).
Furthermore, the individuality, creativity, and diversity that the internet once brought has been taken away from us by the trillion dollar companies who fight for domination over our phones and minds. In the past few years, these companies have invested heavily in Generative AI technology, the newest, hottest dystopian development on the block. Many works of science fiction envisioned a future in which we could talk with our computers and they could respond with active intelligence. They even fantasized that we'd be able to produce images or compose a symphony at the click of a button. These fantasies have now become a reality - there are tons of companies, apps and programs which offer to offload the difficult work of content creation to a server across the planet.
I remember being fascinated with Generative AI when it was first discovered by the internet en masse. I enjoyed experimenting with it, and there was even some content on my site that used AI generated imagery. Back in these days, there were image generators that would generate blobby, low-res interpretations of prompts. This was endlessly fascinating and amusing, seeing what kind of things came out of the prompts I and other people had. I remember learning about NightCafe and using it for the first time. It was still goopy and dream-like, but it seemed to generate things with a slight sense of intelligence. The results would never be good enough to be mistaken for a real image or used for business purposes. They were more of a fun trippy passtime. I remember learning of Dall-E 2 before it was released to the public and being amazed at some of the images it produced. It was legitimately mind-boggling stuff.
If I could have shown myself the state of Generative AI in 2025 back then, I would have shit my pants. We have definitely come a long way from the days of discernably artificial output. Nowadays, generative models such as OpenAI's sora is being used to create fully-fledged commercials. Generative models are now also capable of creating high quality music with lyrics, something it wasn't capable of back then. The quality of AI generated writing has also increased, and people everywhere are using it to make school/work that much easier. These models are trained largely on other peoples works that are scraped from the internet without permission, regardless of copyright. This has caused a lot of controversy in creative circles (illustrators, musicians, etc.), and now there is a rise in people claiming to have "created" the art that they have prompted (a particularly ironic example being students of a prestigious French animation school, among other things.)
In my original article, I outlined why I was perturbed by this trend of AI artwork. Truth be told, it still rubs me the wrong way to see that many people are eager to take credit for a computer’s work. However, I think it’s a healthy philosophy to recognize that people will always do this, AI or not. People have always find a way to plagiarize, fake, and cheat their way through the world. Whether a person is successful at this or not is a reflection of our society and the things we have to do to survive. Most AI art grifters are, well, grifters. They’ll hop on any trend in hopes of the big bucks. It’s already paid off in the form of concentrated brainrot on Youtube Shorts, TikTok, and Reels. The content machine loves these posts because they get views and create conversation. That’s just as good as anything else in the eyes of these social media corporations.
Something I thought important to add to the article is how new technologies are always met with derision, uncertainty, and fear. Skepticism is healthy, but I think history has proven outright demonization is not. There are plenty of innovations that have gone on to help humankind immensely that were once feared to make the world a worse place. In most cases, there are pros and cons to every technology. This is the main reason I wanted to alter this article.
Innovations in machine learning, neural networks, generative models, etc. have already proven their worth in fields such as medical and scientific research, much like the quantum leaps provided by the rapid innovation in computers and electrical engineering in the mid 20th century. I think most people would agree this is a good thing. AI will likewise provide rapid innovation in other fields of everyday life that will help people like you and me. This is the best application for new technologies, and also the exact reason why I think AI Generated Art is an insult to humanity - art is ephemeral, human, emotional, abstract, expressive. Science is concrete, calculated, peer-reviewed, and pragmatic. AI fits one much more than the other.
I think we have our priorities a little backward. AI could certainly be used to make tedious facets of life much simpler for humanity, but it seems a little grim to use it to replace humanity. Art is human, first and foremost, and when it’s AI generated, the impact and emotion is lost. I do think using technology in art is valid because there is still a human behind the scenes composing the overall work. Think of 3D animation and electronic music production. These forms of art would be impossible without a computer, but it still takes a human being to get it to produce anything. Taking the human out of the equation just makes AI art/music a glorified commission.
Therefore, I think AI could be used as a valuable tool for artists, but not as a replacement for them. Just like computers, they can do away with a lot of the busywork and tedium that gets in the way of artists bringing their vision to fruition. I think of the leaps in technologies in photo-manipulation and video-editing programs that make getting rid of backgrounds as easy as a click of a button. Although it may feel like cheating to all those who worked in that field before the technology got there, you have to admit, that is just a small task in service of a larger purpose, bringing an idea to fruition.
Real quick, I just want to bring up the innovation of Local LLM’s (Large Language Models). We’re coming so far along that you can actually run language models locally on your own PC (provided you’ve got the hardware for it)! The power of these models ranges from decent to superpowered depending on how much silicon you have at your disposal. I bring this up because I think this will be an immense step in the right direction towards healthier power/resource consumption and privacy concerns. I can really get behind the idea of someone running AI locally over using OpenAI or what have you’s servers and technology. I hope to see more innovation in this field soon and I hope that sooner or later more people will be using AI locally on their own hardware.
In my original article, I brought up the social/political impact of AI technology. I do still stand by the things I wrote ( in short, capitalism is bad, AI guzzles energy and resources, fascists will certainly use this technology for evil purposes, yadda yadda.) These are all valid reasons to be worried about the future of AI, but as I said before, every technological innovation comes with its pros and cons. You can argue that agriculture or the industrial revolution was when the human race was marked for death, and I’m not going to argue whether that’s true or not here. All I’m saying is we have to be proactive in using technology in the right way instead of letting powerful people use them for their own benefit. Easier said than done, but MONEY TALKS!
I’ve taken a lot of steps to create a more healthy relationship between me and the internet in the past few years. It has immensely helped my mental health and wellbeing. I invite you to be conscious of the consequences of the technology we use. If we want the world to be a better place, we must stop propping up the billionaires who are making it worse. We must be aware of the fact that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. AI Generated media doesn't just materialize out of thin air, it is trained upon the wrongfully stolen works of billions of artists around the world and is manifested through wasteful consumption of valuable energy and resources. Worst of all, it ends up making some rich asshole even richer, and artists more obsolete in the eyes of a fascist theocracy.
Let’s think about other situations where these consequences apply. We live in a culture where everything is disposable, conceptually and physically, and our survival is threatened by the magnitude of unchecked waste. It is quite literally a cancer on our planet and society as a whole. I don't expect everyone to stop using AI, and I certainly think that anyone who wants to use it has the right to. The bottom line in this country is the dollar, and if we want things to change, the most effective way to do so is to boycott and spread the word about the consequences. I don't expect that a majority of people will do this, and I can live with that fact. I know there are people out there who agree with me, and if we take the steps to be proactive by spreading information and choosing not to support entities which take advantage of it, then maybe we could make a change. Having hope for mankind feels a little foolish, especially when it comes to THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, but what else do we have left?
