Yes, image was created with AI for illustration. Now that you know the look, you'll easily spot them.
I run a Facebook group where people share events and happenings in our local area. Lately, I’ve seen a disturbing trend.
Every post feels the same.
Because every post is, in one way or another, tainted by AI.
Pictures all have the same features—cloudy backgrounds, cartoonish characters—you know the type. Like the image posted above. There is a general AI feel to them that is easily spotted.
Texts all have the same structure, easy to notice—using “it’s not just this, it’s that” sort of thing—sometimes with emojis, sometimes not, but they always come through as a canned response. Where did our individuality go? We’re screaming when governments try to take away our individual rights, yet we let AI make us sound like one and the same? We all have the same voice. There is no difference. Jane now sounds like Mike and Mike sounds like the Prime Minister of Canada. No mistakes, no typos anywhere. I guess I should view this as a plus.
The trend is not only coming from people who can’t write or make cool posters for their events, it’s also coming from highly placed, educated people, whom I KNOW can absolutely eloquently write their own Facebook posts.
And I am just as guilty of this as any of them. But I’m slowly waking up.
Recently, I’ve cancelled my ChatGPT subscription and I’m slowly returning to doing things “by hand”, so to speak. Because honestly, I thought AI was cool at first, but then I realised it is slowly trying to erase me.
We’ve become lazy. We’ve become complacent. And that, my friend, is how bad stuff happens. Complacency is a door for bad actors to implement bad laws and bad policies right under our noses, while we aren’t looking because we are distracted with a million of irrelevant things. Label me a Conspiracy Theorist if you want—it’s still happening.
I am deeply concerned for humanity. Where are we going with all this AI slop? When AI takes over, where will that leave us? Graphic Designers, Website Designers, Music Makers, Writers, Painters, and Programmers are but a few of the professions deeply affected by AI right now. More will come. As AI becomes better, what prevents it from taking over other fields such as Law, Architecture, or anything that doesn’t involve manual labour. What am I saying? Even that is at risk!
We know they’re filling warehouses with robot armies that never complain, never get sick, never get tired. In the end, it’s all about the bottom line. Why would a company keep a writer on staff when AI can do the work of 10, in a fraction of a second, for $11 a month with a subscription to ChatGPT? Why would an employer hire 200 people when they can have 50 robots to do the job and save on salaries, insurance, and employer premiums? They won’t.
We have an unfounded blind trust in our fellow humans. We are letting this happen because we believe those in charge will do the right thing. When has humanity done the right thing in history? What makes us think that without strong regulations in place, the world isn’t going to turn to ruin? What makes us so nonchalant about the fact that our jobs are slowly being phased out and we are being replaced by machines?
What happens when there is 1 job available for every 100 or 500 people on the planet? Do we resort to buying robots that we can rent out to big corporations to work in lieu of us? And what happens if we don’t have money to buy such a robot? Will we be forgotten? Homeless? Starving?
And don’t get me started on the environmental repercussions of AI. Draining our freshwater supplies to cool down machines instead of making sure every human being on earth gets clean water is absolutely absurd to me.
The world is changing at a spectacular pace and nobody is making sure it slows down to allow everybody to get on the ride. Many will be left behind—unless guardrails are put in place sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, I’ll just have to keep seeing that awful regurgitated AI slop flood my group. Or maybe I’ll set the precedent and just make it a rule that no AI slop is allowed.
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