I don't care what you asked ChatGPT

Please, please stop it with the robots

I’ve seen a few variations of the same post lately, both on social media and longer form websites like this one: “I asked ChatGPT X and Y, and it said Z.” The implication is that we, the consumer of said media, should be interested in the resulting image or paragraph. It’s funny! Or useful! And it only took seconds to make, isn’t that cool?!

Let me be very clear: I don’t care what you asked the robot box or how it responded, and I’m annoyed that you’re sharing these responses with me in any context other than, “isn’t this fucked up?” because it well and truly is.

We can talk about how AI plagiarizes authors, steals from other creatives and—while being used as a tool in environmental conservation efforts—is also super terrible for the environment. We can point out how lazy it is to give direction to AI, watch it cook and present the results as original content. But mostly, I just think about how bad it is for us as a species—the inaccuracy, the bias, the lack of critical thought and context and compassion. How it deadens human creativity by eliminating the need to create. The way it replaces actual learning with summaries that aren’t necessarily accurate. The political implications that we’re already living through. How this is all brushed off with a shrug.

But today, let’s focus on art and truth.

AI doesn’t actually create art. This is because we’re talking about COMPUTER PROGRAMS, not artists. It may show you an image or spit out words, but it didn’t create any of it so much as it pillaged in the night. ChatGPT may be exciting a segment a people because it’s new(ish) and shiny but at the end of the day, it’s creepy, boring and often wrong. Why are we tolerating this, yet alone propping it up?

I understand that there are other uses for AI and I’m not arguing that it has no place anywhere, ever. There are valid applications in healthcare, administration, data sorting, engineering and more. It’s useful in the right context and with the appropriate boundaries in place. But when the robots slide into artistic spaces, I want to douse them in water and watch them melt. Keep them far away from my beloved paintings, music and books! This is not the place for machines. A robot cannot write poetry because it cannot feel. It has never felt the warmth of sunlight on skin, tasted a ripe peach or had its heart broken. It does not know love or hate. (Though AI has already learned racism, which is…not good.)

As a parent, I’m deeply concerned about how AI will negatively impact my children’s education. I want my kids to read thoroughly, think critically and come up with original ideas. I want them to try and fail, and learn form those failures before trying again. I want them to win lots but struggle occasionally, because it’s within those struggles that creativity and innovation and resilience are born. I want them to write essays based on passionate revelations they outlined themselves, not direction from a computer program that summarized their textbook. God help me if they glide through their academic careers on an AI cloud, doing the bare minimum because they can. Put in some effort, goddammit! What is a world without it? I may as well shrivel up and die now.

And then there are our own parents, and even our peers, and whoever else keeps interacting with AI videos and images on social media without knowing they’re not real. If you thought the amount of inaccurate quotes and Minions memes on Facebook was bad, wait until you notice all of the deepfakes being cheerfully liked and shared. Did you see that giant owl or the ‘hidden layers’ beneath the Sydney Opera House? Or those videos of a cozy glass-walled cottage on a rainy day? Or if you’re stuck in my algorithm, all of the tiny house interiors that are absolutely impossible in reality? Check out the comments—we are doomed.

(When I see someone unwittingly engage with AI on the Internet, I oscillate between feeling sad, scared, angry and embarrassed for them. Sometimes, it’s all four at once.)

There are dozens of fucked up things happening globally right now and this issue is not the most pressing, I know—not even close. But if I see another ChatGPT prompt presented as art, news or media, I will probably snap. You will be able to see me from miles away because of the flames shooting from my eyes. Instead—or at least, until then—I’ll be here on Substack, screaming into the abyss yet again. At least I wrote these words myself, however rambling and agitated they may be, which is more than ChatGPT can say.

Artists, please hear me now: until the robots catch and kill me, I remain yours in solidarity. In the meantime, good luck keeping your job and preventing your parents from purchasing a tiny home and/or giant owl on Facebook Marketplace. It’s going to happen. I’m sorry. Good luck.