No use of AI is ethical. The titans of the tech industry have effectively stolen all of humanity’s collective knowledge, are training and serving their models using unprecedented levels of fossil fuels and are straining water resources in drought-vulnerable areas. They then sell humanity’s knowledge back to us one token at a time, secure in the fact that they have raised compute costs to such a degree that the phrase “you will own nothing and be happy” reads as fulfilled prophecy.
And for what? So creeps can generate nude images of any woman alive and publicly share them? So nation states can more effectively spread disinformation and surveil us? So that these tech giants can become even more grotesquely wealthy while insinuating that we will all be replaced by their agents?
To what end do we pursue this flawed project? And where does that leave me as a software engineer who incorporated models into my own workflow?
I am reminded that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. It is unethical for me to use AI in the same sense that it is unethical for me to drive my car every day. Every trip I take kills the planet ever more incrementally. The cobalt that is crucial for my vehicle’s electronics was mined with slave labor. The fuel that powers its engine is what in-part enables human rights abuses, mass exploitation and modern-day slavery in the Gulf states. I have blood on my hands, regardless of how carefully I attempt to navigate my place under global capitalism.
Just as refusing to drive my car is both structurally challenging and an ineffective mechanism to meaningfully address climate change, so too is personally refusing to use AI an ineffective solution. There are many structural challenges with avoiding AI tools particularly for software engineering. For one, refusing to do so opens your project to vulnerabilities that will be found by others who do use tools. Addtionally, today’s workplaces are beginning to penalize employees who do not use AI to the degree to which the executives demand.
Telling someone to “just stop using AI” as a solution for its many problems is in the same ballpark as “just stop driving” to fix climate change.
So what do we do? First, recognize that this is a problem that cannot be solved on an individual level and requires collective action. We can advocate for these technologies to be regulated. We can adopt AI policies in our own projects that spell out acceptable and responsible uses. We can show up at city councils that pass sweetheart deals to bring in hyperscale data centers and push back. We can engage in civil disobedience to express our discontent.
We are not all guilty for using AI, but we are responsible. The first step is to recognize this. The next is to do something about it.