This might go long. Fair warning. I hope it'll be worth it, and if it's not, you'll get your money back.
I grew up as the youngest of three children in a single-parent household. Money was tight. And if I left a light on, a door ajar, a plate with food on it, or a fan or air conditioner on when it wasn't needed, I'd hear about it. And I soon learned not to do that, because it wasted money, and money was not a thing to waste.
To this day, I turn off lights, close doors, and feel like I'm doing the right thing. Because even if money isn't so tight, or the lights are very energy-efficient now, it's still a waste, and waste is pointless. Solve for waste. I'll brook honest disagreement over many things, and it's not as if I've never left anything on by accident or carelessness or sloth since, but if you can turn things off when you are not using them, do. Just the right way to live.
This ethos, while ingrained, doesn't seem as common or correct as I get older. In some cases, that's sensible. Eating too much isn't great for you either. Turning computers on and off too often is a stress that can accelerate obsolescence. Some lights are OK to be left on for security. And so on. Exceptions are made, life is rarely completely binary, adults have to live with nuance. But the core point -- waste not want not -- remains valid.
Now, pivoting, to AI.
There's a commercial that shows up during the football games that I watch. Two guys are on a couch. One is toggling between filters to show the other what they would look like if they were rendered in different animation styles. AI is, of course, used to do it. A brief frisson of entertainment is achieved. Yay, technology. Look what we can do now. The implication being that doing such things is fun, inevitable, irresistible. If you don't do this, you're stuck in the past.
By some estimates, to create that image took as much energy as a full charge of your smartphone. Depending on the complexity of the image, it may have also taken up to a liter and a half of water. And it's not as if you create just the one image. You tweak it and play with it some more.
All so that you could see something that you will likely forget about inside of a minute.
But let's say you really somehow loved that image, and it became something that, through the miracle of capitalism and a sucker being born every minute, you were able to sell. Let's imagine that, given how big of a fan you are of the new technology, you complete this transaction via Bitcoin.
By some estimates, a single Bitcoin transaction uses approximately 16,000 liters of water, enough to fill a backyard swimming pool. As for the electricity used, the average US household uses about 900 kilowatt hours per month. Mining a single Bitcoin comes in around 155,000 kilowatt hours.
And that is why your electric and water bills have been going up. Supply and demand. (Not, as some would have you believe, because someone is in the pocket of Big Solar, Big Wind, or whatever else you don't like being Big.)
Let's go back to the image. Historically, that was someone's job, and one that required a fair amount of talent and craft to get good at. Now? Not so much.
So, to recap, we have a technology that:
1) Ends employment without anything close to a replacement level of jobs.
2) Is being paid for by you and me, via electric and water bills.
3) Produces nothing of substantive value beyond the financial transaction, which
4) Benefits the (already) wealthiest people on the planet, who are not particularly interested in sharing that wealth with you.
You'd think that this might be more of a story, no? You'd think there might be more pushback, more public discussion of the merits of this direction?
Well, no.
And it's in this moment that you can simply state that the media is owned and operated by the same interests that benefit from the wealth transfer. Because those who hope to stay afloat in the coming even worse times want to make sure they are seen as trustworthy and fit to serve the elites. Because pissing off wealthy people now is equivalent to pissing off the police. (I.e., you might have the legal right to do it, but you don't have a legal right to, well, employment.)
But you could, you know, not use AI. So could everyone.
A cynic would say this is the way the world has always been. That standing in the way of technology is right up there with holding back the tides. That there will be winners and losers from this game, the same as any other, and your personal responsibility is to make sure you and yours are provided for. That if you don't use it, you will lose.
Me?
I think about popular uprisings destroying data centers.
Because that's the thing about despots, and income inequality, and kleptocracies, and so many more ills that afflict the human condition.
They seem inevitable. Omnipotent. Pointless to resist.
Until they are very much not.