Contemplations

Why I dislike artificial intelligence

Nuclear Power Plant Cooling Towers at Night
Photo by Simon R. Minshall⩘  via Pexels

So far I dislike just about everything I've seen of artificial intelligence, or more specifically, Large Language Models/chatbots, since at this time (early 2025), in my opinion, the existence of artificial "intelligence" is really a delusion.

The problem begins with thinking about "AI" as one super-powerful technology when it is, in fact, a marketing term that clusters together a lot of different technologies under one umbrella.
– Do you believe in hope after "AI" hype? Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna make the case⩘  by JD Shadel, ESC KEY, May 18, 2025.

I actually expend a lot of effort and time avoiding or trying to disable AI, and it angers me that I have to waste energy doing this that I could use elsewhere in more productive and creative ways.

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Previous articles: < 2026 Jan–Jun  ·  < 2025/24

Before I continue with this rant, it's important to acknowledge that there may be a few applications where machine learning may provide a limited benefit.

Of Hype and Harm

There are applications of machine learning that are well scoped, well tested, and involve appropriate training data such that they deserve their place among the tools we use on a regular basis. These include such everyday things as spell-checkers (no longer simple dictionary look-ups, but able to flag real words used incorrectly) and other more specialized technologies like image processing used by radiologists to determine which parts of a scan or X-ray require the most scrutiny. But in the cacophony of marketing and startup pitches, these sensible use cases are swamped by promises of machines that can effectively do magic, leading users to rely on them for information, decision-making, or cost savings—often to their detriment or to the detriment of others.

– Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, The AI Con: How To Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want⩘ 

Update Nov/Dec 2025: Looks like hurricane forecasting⩘  may be effective, too, though I just read a different article⩘  about how dangerous it can be to use AI for predicting the tides, so who knows for sure? And that's the fundamental problem with AI at this time: who knows for sure?

Update Jun 8, 2026: The weather and climate science AI revolution isn't revolutionary: Machine learning has its limits—how is it being used?⩘  by Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica.

Compared to ECMWF's high-resolution physics-based model, a recent study found that the common machine learning models "tend to underestimate both the frequency and intensity of record-breaking events, […] with growing errors for larger record exceedance." Since these models won't go beyond what they saw in training, they may smooth out extreme events, capping them so they stay within the bounds of normal conditions. That behavior is problematic for extreme-weather forecasts. But for climate models, it's a deal-breaker.

Beyond those limited cases, however, most of what we are hearing and having crammed down our throats right now appears to be mainly pure hype being perpetrated by greedy tech bro scam artists desperately trying to make money out of what is an existential arms race: whichever company and country creates the first Artificial General Intelligence (AGI, AI that equals human-level intelligence) or even Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI, AI that surpasses human-level intelligence), if either of those ever happen, is likely to control the future, at least until they lose control of the AGI/ASI they created. (See: AI 2027⩘  by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean.)

I've abandoned some apps, websites, and search engines because of the intrusive way they have stuffed AI into their implementations. Obviously, I stopped using Microsoft Windows, and gave away the beautiful Framework laptop I had that ran it. I no longer use the FedEx website to try to get help with a delayed or lost shipment; their "virtual assistant" is totally moronic and useless. I stopped using Google search—and actually almost everything Google-related—years ago because of what I consider to be their unethical behavior. So their frequent stumbles with AI don't affect me directly, but they do leave me shaking my head and glad I no longer use their products (even more so since I read in May 2026 about Google's plans to completely refocus its search on AI results rather than related website links: Google Search as you know it is over⩘ by Sarah Perez, TechCrunch).

For my searches, I currently use the AI free version of DuckDuckGo Search (https://noai.duckduckgo.com/⩘ ) and have set up a default search shortcut: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/%s. I'm also testing an annual subscription to Kagi Search⩘ , made palatable for me by a CSS customization by Eskild Hustvedt⩘  (thanks!) that removes all AI-features and tools from Kagi.

I can tell that AI is a scam because it's not opt in. In fact, in most cases it's infuriatingly challenging or outright impossible to opt out. (I even stopped using the DuckDuckGo browser since they introduced Duck.ai, which was, at the time I stopped using it and canceled my paid subscription, turned on by default for paid subscribers with no way to turn it off.)

AI is being crammed down our throats, just like the scam of personal data collection through stealth surveillance tech has been.

The hype is fading, and people are asking what generative artificial intelligence is really good for. So far, no one has a decent answer.

– Generative AI Still Needs to Prove Its Usefulness⩘  by Gary Marcus, Wired, Dec 20, 2024.

I also dislike the way this shit technology is causing a huge increase in power consumption, including more coal burning, fossil fuel consumption, and nuclear power plant construction, as well as sucking up massive amounts of fresh water, including in regions where there are water shortages, all of which is putting a further lethal strain on our climate. And the fucking AI companies are doing everything they can to hide this consumption from the public.

Here's a revealing answer by Stuart Russell to a reporter's pointed question:

At the close of the conference, I said to [Stuart Russell, who literally wrote the textbook⩘  on AI] that we seemed to be using an incredible amount of energy and other natural resources to race headlong into something we probably shouldn't be creating in the first place, and which the relatively benign versions of are already, in many ways, misaligned with the kinds of societies that we actually want to live in.

"Yup," he replied.

– I met the 'godfathers of AI' in Paris – here's what they told me to really worry about⩘  by Alexander Hurst, The Guardian, Feb 14, 2024

See also: Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control by Stuart Russell⩘ .

All of this contributes to why I have evolved from someone who loved technology decades ago to someone who now dislikes and distrusts Big Tech and AI Tech Bros.

Can someone please inform the tech giants that no one wants an AI-assisted experience on every single app, but everyone NEEDS drinking water and a habitable planet.
– A post by Greenpeace International⩘ , Dec 13, 2025.

Important: While I dislike and distrust Big Tech and AI Tech Bros, I do NOT condone any form of violence. In my opinion, the resistance to AI should be conducted on a personal level by staying informed, by avoiding using it, and by being skeptical of its output; on a social level through educating people about the risks of AI and by supporting legislation to impose thoughtful guardrails on AI development and the proliferation of data centers; and on an action level, through engaging in political action and by expressing dissent through only non-violent protests. In my opinion, the way forward is by focusing on creating a better, human-centered future.

Related: I highly recommend the excellent documentary, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, which provides an in-depth overview of the state of AI development as of early 2026, including its existential threats and potential promises. The film is compromised of interviews with many leading experts working on various aspects of AI.

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist⩘  directed by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell, with producer Daniel Kwan, the co-director of the wonderful film Everything Everywhere All at Once. Released Jan 27, 2026.

See also: Daniel Kwan Spent 3 Years Staring into the AI Abyss. He Came Back with a Warning (and a Map)⩘ , No Film School, Mar 17, 2026.

A reality check: Is AI Profitable Yet? Tracking the spend and revenue of frontier AI companies⩘ .

Related articles – 2026 Jul–Dec

• Jul 4, 2026: How AI is changing language: As allegations of LLM use rock the literary and media worlds, linguists explain what really distinguishes human and machine language, while novelists including Jennifer Egan and Jeanette Winterson reflect on the future of fiction in an age of ChatGPT⩘  by David Shariatmadari, The Guardian.
  
  • "One much feared effect of the mass use of LLMs is that they act as a flattening force – smoothing away the variety and idiosyncrasy of human language into a kind of beige goo. That's a legitimate concern, as far as it goes, though it's not a new one. People have long angsted about the homogenising effects of American film and television on accent and vocabulary, and there are subgenres of language – political euphemism, customer-service prattle, therapy-speak – that have spread further from their home territory than many might like. The crucial thing, though, is that their influence tends to generate a backlash – and there's no reason to think things will be different this time. In fact, our capacity for innovation might ultimately be the thing that truly distinguishes human writing – particularly the literary kind – from AI."
  • Note: And, no, I wasn't able to tell which of the three reviews were human or AI generated. In fact, I didn't like any of them. My main objection to writers using AI is when they incorporate AI-generated research into their writing without checking whether the AI has generated bullshit, which it all too often does. In his book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late⩘ , Cory Doctorow used AI to speed up his research, but then when he found what he was searching for, he manually verified it. In my view, that's an appropriate use of a tool. In contrast, when Steve Rosenbaum incorporated quotes attributed to other real people that were generated by the AI he was using to do research in his book, The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality⩘ , he didn't bother to manually verify them, and several of them turned out to be made up. To me, that's entirely unacceptable.
  • Another example of an inappropriate use of AI in writing: Recently, I came across a June 29, 2026 Mastodon post by Ben Werdmuller, who writes speculative fiction and is a technology lead at ProPublica. His post claimed: "A right-wing media chain bought local papers, replaced their journalists with AI, and died. Now their communities are left to plug the gaps."⩘  A few people replied to his Mastodon post bemoaning this development. But when I read his article that he linked to in his post, A right-wing media chain tried to replace 47 newspapers with AI. They all died.⩘ , I discovered that he subsequently added a preface to the article: "Hey, so, mea culpa. I referenced an article here by what appears to be a fully AI-generated newsroom. The irony!" I replied to his Mastodon post saying, "In your article that you link to, you acknowledge that this story doesn't appear to be real. So why haven't you updated your post here to reflect that?" He replied in what I interpreted to be a condescending manner: "I quote posted it to re-post with an article and assumed people would also just, you know, read the post." I replied: "But surely someone with as much experience as you have knows that many people who are browsing social media will read only the post and not bother to read the linked article, and your post leads with a summary written by you that is not factual. How difficult could it be to edit your post and update that summary to add factual context for those people who won't bother to read your attached article, which also has a false headline? Absent that change, your post risks perpetrating false news." He did not reply and has not, as of July 4, 2026, updated his Mastodon post nor the title of the linked article. To me, this is another example of an unacceptable research, not carefully verifying an AI reference before incorporating it into something one is writing. I also consider it careless and deeply disappointing that he has chosen to leave his misleading post up without bothering to edit it, further propagating fake news.
• Jul 2, 2026: How Google and AI Nearly Made a Seasoned Reporter Spiral⩘  by Justin Elliott, ProPublica.
  
  • "I thought I had missed something major in my reporting. Turns out I had stumbled into an AI-fueled feedback loop that involved a real LLC's fictional website and a search engine that's thrusting unreliable answers on users."

Related privacy hints

• A helpful online privacy tool: EFF Privacy Badger⩘ .
• DuckDuckGo No AI search: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/%s⩘ .
• A valuable source of information and research: Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR)⩘ .
• Avoid TV tracking: How to break free from smart TV ads and tracking ⩘  by Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, Dec 12, 2025.
• Avoid Google: Recommended Google alternatives⩘  by Anthony Dean, Diverse Tech Geek, Nov 18, 2025.
• Avoid Big Tech: Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more⩘  by Steve Rose, The Guardian.
  
  • "There's not much to love about big tech these days. So many ills can be laid at its door: social media harms, misinformation, polarisation, mining and misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance, the list goes on.… But the good news is we can go elsewhere. The rest of the world is weighing up its reliance on US technologies, and in Europe especially we're realising there are better alternatives to just about everything big tech is shilling, if by 'better' we mean greener, more ethical, more independent, more respectful of your privacy or simply less disturbingly, monolithically powerful. Making the switch is easier than you might imagine."

Related books

• The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow⩘ 
• The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality by Steve Rosenbaum with a forward by Maria Ressa⩘ . Warning: I have learned that this book contains improperly attributed or synthetic quotes generated by AI, so I no longer consider it a reliable reference related to AI. My review of it has been updated to reflect this. I guess this is the future of truth.
• The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby⩘ .
• The Impossible Detective by Bob Reiss⩘ .
• Who Knows You by Heart by C.J. Farley⩘ .
• Rewiring Democracy by Bruce Schneier & Nathan E. Sanders⩘ .
• The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly⩘ .
• Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI by Karen Hao⩘ .
• If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares⩘ .
• Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling⩘ .
• The AI Con: How To Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna⩘ .
• More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity by Adam Becker⩘ .
• Your Face Belongs to Us: A Tale of AI, a Secretive Startup, and the End of Privacy by Kashmir Hill⩘ .
• Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines by Joy Buolamwini⩘ .
• The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI by Fei-Fei Li⩘ .
• The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar⩘ .
• Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World⩘  by Carl T. Bergstrom & Jevin D. West
• The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation⩘  by Cory Doctorow
• I Am Code, An Artificial Intelligence Speaks: Poems by code-davinci-002⩘ .
• Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse by Nina Schick⩘ .
• Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control by Stuart Russell⩘ .
• Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark⩘ .

Related contemplations

• May 26, 2026: The Kids are alright⩘ .
• 2025: When we can't know whether we can trust what we see⩘ .
• Dec 1, 2025: I almost can't believe it! Six months after I posted about a moronic mistake being made by Google's AI Overview in an answer to a totally simple question (see May 29, 2025 below), I just saw another post about another unbelievably stupid mistake being made by Google's AI overview, again in answer to a question simple enough that a toddler could answer it correctly. These Big Tech greed factories are pouring countless billions of dollars into developing this technology. They are poisoning our environment, raising our utility bills, and draining our fresh water to run it. They are exploiting underpaid and overworked people around the world who are tasked to try to manually correct its mistakes and attempt to make it better.They are promising us that this is our bright future. And their AI can't even correctly add 2025+1?
  
  • Google search query: is 2026 next year?
    Google AI Overview: No, 2026 is not next year; it will be the year after next. 2025 is the current year, and 2026 is two years away.
    This year: 2025
    Next year: 2026
    The year after: 2027
  • 
  I'll repeat myself: This is the technology Big Tech is betting our future on.
• Sep 28, 2025: Tim Berners-Lee is such a visionary; we need to listen to him!⩘ .
• Sep 11, 2025: AI: the importance of being vigilant and skeptical⩘ .
• Jul 29, 2025: AI veganism⩘ .
• Jul 6, 2025: Educators take a stand against AI in education⩘ .
• May 29, 2025: I just saw a post on Mastodon by Lauren Weinstein⩘ :
  "Billions of dollars. Untold megawatts of power. To create a low grade #Google #AI Moron. #AISlop"
  It included a screenshot of a Google search query: "Is it 2025?"
  The AI Overview answer: "No, it is not 2025. The current year is 2024. According to the calendar. It is May 28, 2024."
  So I decided to try it myself.
  The AI Overview answer I received: "No, it is not 2025. The current year is 2025. According to the calendar, we are in the year 2025."
  See this post with the screen capture of this result⩘ .
  
• May 8, 2025: AI machines aren't 'hallucinating'. But their makers are⩘ .
• Jun 11, 2022: Is LaMDA Sentient?⩘ .
• 2017: Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions: Mistaken extrapolations, limited imagination, and other common mistakes that distract us from thinking more productively about the future⩘ .