Josh Jackson Author

3,200 words, 18 minutes estimated read time

While the world loses its collective mind over AI, I seem to be in the minority who couldn’t care less.

Let me rephrase. I couldn’t be less interested in using it in my life in any form. That said, of course it’s being foisted upon all of us whether we like it or not.

I no longer get a human when calling Support or Customer Service. So my personal ban on AI fails upon that encounter with reality. Who is running the show behind the scenes of all the services and products I use daily? More and more, it’s AI.

Soon, it will be almost entirely AI, if not completely humanless. Jobs are being replaced by the thousands, and the bloodbath has only just begun. Estimates indicate up to half a million jobs may be lost to AI by 2030. That’s a lot of folks whose lives will be wrecked.

So while you cannot get AI out of your life, and it may even ruin your life, don’t fear– you still do have choices.

Where can you pick and choose AI in your life? I suppose it depends on how much you let it.

I have AI and javascript disabled in my web browsers, and even autofill. I get no AI assistants or prompts, just a search bar. I realize AI is being used to curate my search results, and that sucks. Because my search results are still terrible, giving me little of what I wanted to search for and mostly what I’m supposed to see and read and know.

To help avoid this false curation of reality, I use no “personal assistants” of any kind. The phone isn’t listening to me and replying with the madness and distorted reality I see others’ phone “assistants” spewing. The phone isn’t arguing with me when I try to speak truths inconvenient or unapproved. Telling me to calm down when I’m rightfully angry. Offering terrible advice unsolicited.

I only hear from other humans in response to my speech. When I’m alone, and talk out loud, reality: all I hear is the echo off the walls. No lunatic AI entity pandering to me, stroking my ego, telling me what it thinks I want to hear or should believe, or giving me suicide instructions.

And of course, when I write, there are no prompts, edits, suggestions, or changes. My writing is all 100% me and mine. A human even designed my book covers, albeit with some AI employed on their end. I didn’t want that, but as the covers were free of charge, I could only suggest changes, not dictate the designer’s process.

I use a human designer because AI fails miserably in creating a cover for me. I have given it a fair shake, truly. No matter how many different image generators I tried, fail. I wasted hours upon hours trying different prompts, both positive and negative, and got nowhere.

I asked for a plain white background. Nope. I asked for the subject to be isolated in a blank field. Still put background in. I said every variation of “no trees” and “no vegetation” and “empty space” and “blank field” and so on for literal hours, writing an overlong paragraph of instructions, no exaggeration. In no case did any AI generator give me the subject only with no background.

Another try just this week. No different. I asked for the subject’s head to extend out of the image because I wanted them to appear anonymous. In no case could the generators (I tried three) actually do this. Every one showed the full figure, head and all.

I again asked repeatedly for a blank background, and instead all sorts of scenes were inserted. I used a negative prompt, rephrased the positive prompts in multiple ways, and really bent my mind trying to think how the generator would interpret my words.

No dice. Backgrounds, head shown, other details it got fully wrong. It clearly could not understand the basics of reality. Or was mostly ignoring what I said.

In any case, my human graphic designer was in no way so very bad at their job. Their work was exemplary– just look at the cover of Too Many Bigfoots. Awesome!

So I gave up on image generators. And I did so for all AI. It wasn’t just image makers that failed miserably.

The entities they give me for phone “support” never understand my speech. If you watch my YouTube channel, you’ll hear that I am adequate in my elocution. It’s not my garbled speech, it’s AI’s garbled understanding of reality. The basics of reality. Even now, the “new best models” that are apparently just-so-great are still putting out image of people with alien hands, extra arms, tentacle limbs, strange body proportions, and nightmare expressions on faces.

It’s creepy as hell.

If this is the best it can do, and AI is about to become everything, then we’re screwed.

I hear the engineers, claiming its work is literally perfect and the things it creates are better than humans can do. Hmm. My experience is a wee bit different.

Well, just to be fair I tried the AI-designed app, and it was in no way “perfect.” Instead it was a terrible app experience, because no human actually used it before its release. The reviews of the app are mostly one-star, and the five-star reviews were clearly written by an AI agent. To avoid getting sued I cannot disclose the app, but please do rest assured, only AI -and its blind-faith supporters- thought it was a good app.

This is not reality, folks. It’s a hallucination. And we never needed AI to imagine things which do not exist.

That’s where human content creators -writers like me- come in. You don’t need AI to write anything. We already have writers, many thousands of which are very good, and the majority of which are competent. All you do when you use AI to write is turn your back on artists, creators– your fellow human beings. And yourself.

We have artists, graphic designers, coders. You may be one of them. “Oh but AI is faster and better” you claim, but let’s not play games. You know that’s bullshit.

Because so what if it performs better? It’snot a person working a job to earn a living.

Thus, AI equals unemployment. How in any reality is that a good thing?? Or turning your back on other people? Repudiating their usefulness, their talents, their hard work, essentially telling them, “you have zero value.” And telling yourself the same. When in reality it’s AI that has no value.

“No free lunch” is a hard truth of reality, a reality AI repudiates. And recall the modern phrase, “if it’s free YOU’RE the product.”

“Free” AI software or agents cost humanity literally everything. It takes away that which gives our lives meaning and purpose and replaces it with a worthless pile of computer code. Which cannot feel, only simulate feeling. It cannot think but only simulate thought.

And what it puts out is not a creation at all but rather the result of a mass of algorithms and coding trying to please its human commanders with simulacra. Fakery. Lies.

I’ll never use AI for ideas or prompts. I won’t use it for my creative process. I’ll never use it for editing, unless AI is surreptitiously used in spell checks. I don’t even use grammar checks other than once in the final check pre-publication (just in case). My grammar isn’t perfect, but here’s a little secret:

Imperfection is what tells you this was written by a human. A real person.

This is real. Reading this, you are experiencing reality right now. A human being only did the typing and thinking and creating. That’s where I live– the closest thing to objective reality I can find. And to where I often have to drag, kicking and screaming, others. They hate it, they hate me, but ultimately they thank me for saving them from a black hole of delusion.

I don’t deal in theories or deductions or suppositions. I deal in verifiable facts. Proof in my hand. And so while so many are insisting AI won’t hurt a thing and only does good for humanity, I cannot live in such a false reality. The facts are plain, the evidence there for all to see.

We’re all going to lose our jobs over AI. And already are. The merging of AI and robots is here, with, yes, up to half a million robots likely to replace humans by 2030. In ALL professions.

I will no longer be wanted or needed, even as as writer, because no one will care anymore who wrote what. And no publisher will need pay out royalties to AI. So all of us, being so expensive to compensate for our work, are doomed.

The pro-AI folks insist we’ll all just become artists, but that’s fantasy. We cannot all be artists, or art loses all meaning and value. Thus, only AI will create things anymore, since, again, who cares? is the presiding sentiment these days and soon will be the guiding principle. How horrifying.

And of course the addendum “AI does everything better anyway.” Indeed, artists will be replaced. We are, in fact, all doomed.

My writing will be seen as inferior, your painting will be viewed as amateurish, that sculpture will be derided as clumsy.

There is one thing that just may save us from that.

Perfection is boring.

When I was a teen, my mother got into Native American culture, and I tagged along for some. One thing we learned was how to bead. I used just a simple modern-style beading loom, but one lesson got imprinted firmly.

Some Natives viewed perfection as something not for humans. Only for the Great Spirit, the creator. And to show that they were not perfect, they always put one “mistake” into their beading or other creations. A random mismatched color or error in the design.

A show of humility, of humbleness, of humanity.

That’s what makes human creations so much better. They’re not perfect. That would be impossible, really.

Being human is being imperfect.

Our imperfections are actually what make us interesting. We’re not all exact carbon copies of each other. Again, that’s boring, uninteresting. Sterile.

Messes are interesting. Noise is interesting. Errors, as well as one’s best work, illustrate humanity, show our limitations, delineate who we are as individuals.

Artificial Intelligence isn’t an individual. It’s just computer code. Ones, zeroes, superpositions. Math’s cold logic. There is no humanity anywhere. Chilly, fake. Unalive. Bloodless. You can’t hug AI.

I prefer living beings. They hug you back because they actually care. Robots are just machines operating on code telling them how to approximate a human hug; they are incapable of caring but instead only a simulation of caring.

They certainly cannot appreciate my writing or your painting. They only see errors and imperfection compared to their algorithms, not the passion that art instills in people.

The surprise of your first experience with a work of art, whether music, writing, sculpture, or painting, is part of the experience. Because a person, whose mind you cannot really know and understand, made that artwork. They aren’t you, don’t think like you. And thus, discovering their viewpoint, their perspective, their ideas, is surprising, gratifying, enjoyable. Fun. You didn’t know what to expect.

Sadly, AI does not try to make art but rather attempt to please humans in accordance with its programming. It cannot experience the surprise of a new, organic, human work of art. And thus cannot be an artist itself. It is incapable of experience, only observation and soulless analysis.

Did Spock, or Data find jokes funny? Or merely understand that humans did, and therefore to get along with humans better, pretend to laugh at a pre-calculated point determined by cold, logical analysis of human psychology and sociology?

In art (not entertainment) the artist should not care about making you happy, but rather in merely presenting their work to the whole world with no expectations whatsoever. This is a crucial aspect of the creation of art: our obedience to the muse regardless of the opinion of others.

So many of us consider ourselves mere mediums for the artwork, that we simply channeled the words or painting into reality. And even if we ignored the muse, we aren’t trying to make viewers or readers or listeners happy, but rather expressing ourselves, and letting the chips fall where they may.

I myself feel deeply compelled to write things, regardless of potential readers. And it’s almost as if the story already existed and I’m just taking dictation from the muse. Many famous authors have espoused this very sentiment many times over the centuries.

And the muse exists nowhere in AI “art.” But what is art? This question is no slippery slope. It’s quite clear and quite simple.

Art consists of one thing: creative self-expression. Saying “I am hungry” is not art, but merely self-expression. Making a painting that expresses your hunger in a creative way is art.

AI has nothing to say other that what it thinks you want to hear. And as it is merely computer code, it has no “self.” Thus there is nothing to express; it is incapable of self-expression in the first place. It certainly is not capable of creativity. Only sycophantism. It just shows you what you told it to show you.

Only humans can create art. Amendment: some animals, which absolutely communicate with us, seem to also make art, but we’re not precisely sure what it is they think they’re doing.

Everything AI “creates” as “art” is just a guess as to what we want to see or hear or read. A sloppy reproduction or facsimile of something a human already made. Base entertainment, not art. So what’s the point?

The real point of AI is not to help you create, or make new art, or be your friend. Its point is to help the corporations massively reduce their bottom lines in order to make more money. To get rid of those expensive, needy humans. To hire workers who won’t complain about rights because they will not have any. Does computer code have the right to minimum wage? Or paid time off?

The “tools” that “they” give us are either toys to keep us distracted or weapons to keep us at each other’s throats, and in either case not at their mansion gates. This is not paranoia or conspiracy theory, it’s what “they” have openly admitted. (If you know where to look for such information…)

But forget theories. Examine reality. The effects on the ground. Are you seeing the benefits of the millions of dollar saved by replacing workers with machines? Are prices falling now that, say, Microsoft replaced half its workforce with AI? Or Heineken threw six thousand workers to the curb so AI could do their jobs instead?

Nope, all it’s doing is incurring massive job losses, which creates an increasing burden on society. And a tsunami of AI job losses to come this year. While prices remain stupidly high and creep ever higher monthly.

Come on, folks. When a single bag of groceries costs $100 or more, and for mere staples or healthy foods, how in the world has AI made a real difference in your life? What’s more important to you, some corporation making a mint, or your kids eating tonight?

Most experts in AI have now admitted, revealed, or sounded the alarm– “robots took our jobs” will be the factual cry of a huge swath of us within about a year, maybe even less.

That will be a catastrophe, and one willfully inflicted by our employers. You’ll be jobless and homeless, while your former employer quadruples its profits. Is that a utopia? A good thing? Progress?

And how stupid is it to take away jobs, reducing the ability to buy commercial goods and services, in the name of increasing the profit of a company that makes its money selling commercial goods or services? It simply won’t work.

We jobless would -or rather, will, and even now, do- spend less, or none at all, while scrounging in dumpsters and alleys and “FREE” bins, collecting cans and bottles. Revenue will drop, reducing, say, a food company’s annual income, thereby decreasing the company’s value. Maybe even bankrupting it.

It’s simple logic. If you don’t pay workers, how can they pay for the goods you sell? And don’t start with the “universal basic income” garbage. That’s some serious economic and financial voodoo hocus-pocus there.

I can only insist as a real, workable, practical solution that before the national disaster of mass job losses, before the ruination of the art world, and instead of blowing billions on UBI, we simply turn our backs on AI, collectively. Everyone has to agree to this, or it won’t work.

And did the world somehow not turn pre-AI?

All humans really need is consistent access to coffee and we will get shit done.

If you like your income level, your home, and the stability that a job and home bring to your existence, then you’ll boycott AI and demand it be banned from everything, everywhere, and forever.

The only people who support the AI apocalypse are those monsters who just want to see the world burn. And the fatcat one-percenters who run and own everything. “They.”

That’s not you and me. We want humanity to succeed and win, not AI, and we want to do so without harming others merely for profit.

AI will, has, and does harm people. Kill people even. And more, many more, to come, and soon. We can head it off. We can stop it.

Don’t just boycott AI, replace it!

Do things yourself. By hand. From scratch. Learn by doing, not by Googling. Check your own grammar. Come up with your own ideas. Do your own thinking. Draw your own picture.

Be your own Personal Assistant. Use the most powerful muscle in our bodies: our brains.

Recall, or learn, that pre-internet we all simply memorized things. We knew everyone’s phone number. We recalled addresses, wrote and mailed our own letters, painted our own art, played our own music.

Employed humans. Gave people purpose, meaning, usefulness. Lifted them out of poverty or homelessness, or helped them rebuild their lives after prison or substance dependance.

And for the love of all that’s decent, put the phone down and go talk to someone.

Engage with your neighborhood, re-enter public life where you shop for your own goods in a store and socialize in person. Get to know your grocery store clerk’s name; make a friend while waiting in line. Look a person in the eye. Smile at them.

Go for a walk and leave the phone at home. Cook from scratch. Brainstorm on a piece of paper. Come up with your own ideas.

And do the one thing that AI cannot do, and can never do. Only pretend to using fakery.

Sing!