I Hate AI

Look, I understand progress. I came up as a graphic designer in the 90s when computers became mainstream and entire industries like Color Separating were headed for extinction. I started out when being a designer required artistic ability as foundation for a craft that included precise hand lettering, stat machines, loupes, and overlays. I nonetheless embraced Macs and Adobe in their various iterations and became a master at these tools. And more recently, I have educated myself on the ins and outs of the social media and digital onslaught that has completely upended marketing.

But, this.

This feels like we are being trampled by some sort of Robotron machination hell bent on human destruction. OK, that might be my overzealous imagination due to years of dystopian robots-are-taking-over-the-world movies. But, aren’t they?

It sure feels that way.

Robots answering phones and asking 40,000 questions that don’t apply to you and that they can't actually answer because, well, robots.., before you finally get to a human being after hitting zero a dozen times in a row and screaming profanities at a cyborg.

You telling boxes to tell boxes to turn on TVs and open doors, because, wow, clicking a button or turning a key. The horror.

AI listening to every word you say and watching every click you make, so you can be policed and coerced without your permission. Hell, even your likeness isn’t protected anymore.

And don’t, please don’t, extol the virtues of ChatGPT and art "programs" like Canva to me. Because both of these advents murder imagination and create a level of lazy that makes my little creative soul weep. Real, actual tears.

I get that AI also helps us do some pretty cool shit like track weather patterns and thwart enemies. And I will agree that AI has made once tedious and frustrating chores like paying a bill or depositing a check a whole lot easier. But I’ll point out the obvious, that we have replaced the frustration of standing in line at a bank with staying on hold swearing at robots.

Maybe I’ve been a little too influenced by those dystopian movies, but we ARE being replaced. It might feel like progress and it might be relatively slowly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. How many behemoth corporations have you called recently that employ people to immediately answer the phone instead of having to tell disembodied code “in a few simple words” what your issue is? How many times do you find yourself opting to scan your own groceries because there are fewer and fewer tellers, despite the fact that your prices haven’t dropped when their overhead clearly has? And who of you, in the creative community, has not shaken their head at the utter crap that is being sold as good because any dolt can use Canva?

I fear for our future, people, and you should, too. Yes, progress is good and it is necessary.

But this…