2. Fuck AI

This is probably going to be one of my more controversial episodes, one that makes me very angry, exacerbated, and quite frankly, disappointed in society. And honestly? That’s exactly why I wanted it to be one of the first episodes.

We’re talking about being anti-AI.
Not just “use it less.” Not just “use it responsibly.”
I mean… fuck AI all together. And fuck all the people that promote AI use. Because they are exactly why our planet is dying faster.

As an online business owner, I know that AI makes things "easier"... but at what cost? It takes up so much water, it's killing our planet, and really feeding into our brain deterioration.

So listen to this episode, and let me know what you think. You won't change my mind, and honestly, if you disagree with me - that's okay. I disagree with you, too.

I will leave you with this: use your own goddamn fucking brain.

At the end of this episode, I have a challenge for you and I can't wait to see you participate in it.

This won't be the last time I talk all things anti-AI, but I wanted you to get a taste of my stance early on so we're clear on who I am and where my values lie.

Can't wait for the next one. Until next time, Yappers!

Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsallmost/

Visit my website: https://www.itsallmost.com

Join The Conversion Club: https://itsallmost.com/the-conversion-club

Sources:

-A single large data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water per day for cooling; that’s roughly equivalent to 16,000+ U.S. households daily (Consumer Reports) 

-Similarly, a single medium-sized data center can consume up to 110 million gallons per year just for cooling; about what 1,000 households use in one year (EESI Institute). 

-AI infrastructure is pushing electricity demand to levels comparable to entire countries (Science Direct)

-AI systems could emit 32 - 79 million tons of CO₂ annually - roughly equivalent to the emissions of New York City (EuroNews) 

-Research into the cognitive effects of AI suggest, from a neurological standpoint, widespread use of this AI carries the risk of overall cognitive atrophy and loss of brain plasticity (Polytechnic Insights). Studies suggest that individuals who rely heavily on AI for information and decision-making may experience a decline in their ability to analyze problems independently and engage in reflective thinking (American National Standards Institute) 

-A study indicated that while participants using ChatGPT wrote 60% faster, their "relevant cognitive load" - the mental effort required for deep learning and critical thinking - dropped by 32%. (Polytechnic Insights) 

-Memory Failure: A study found that 83% of participants who used ChatGPT to write an essay were unable to remember a passage they had just written shortly after finishing the task. (Polytechnic Insights) 

-Brain Connectivity Drop: EEG scans revealed that ChatGPT users showed a 47% decrease in brain connectivity (lower alpha and theta wave activity) compared to those writing without AI. (Medium Magazine) 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello. Welcome to episode two of The Conversation Club. I'm so happy you're here. Um, today we're talking about probably what's gonna be a little bit of a controversial topic. That's something I'm very passionate about, which is why I wanted it to be sort of one of the first episodes that you hear from me. We're talking about being anti-AI and why I think more of us should be anti-AI. I think why I think all of us should be anti-AI, frankly. Before we get into it, I just want to say this is an opinion-based episode. There's gonna be some like research that, you know, I I have backed up for my opinions, but I it's going to be sort of very opinion-based, very uh from my perspective. And so we're here to have a conversation, and that's okay. I will link all of the research that I'm gonna be uh referencing in the show notes so that you can go look at them and know that I'm not making this shit up. Um, if you disagree with me, that's okay. I disagree with you too. I will not be convinced to ever be pro AI. Like, I'm just gonna be honest with you. So I do welcome differing perspectives. Like, you're, you know, come into my DMs and tell me how you feel. That's fine. But I just gonna warn you that I'm not encouraging debates on this or anything, frankly, that's gonna involve us going back and forth in a non-productive way. Okay. So, like, please do not come into my DMs trying to convince me to be pro-AI because you will fail. I will never be pro-AI. Okay. But this is the Conversation Club. We are, you know, I'm trying to have a conversation with all of you. Um, but really, honestly, if you agree with me, if you are anti-AI, I want to hear from you because I don't think I have enough people in my online sphere in my everyday life that are as anti-AI as I want them to be. So if you are just as anti-AI or even more anti-AI than I am, I want to connect with you. I want to collab with you, I want to commiserate with you over our colleagues that, you know, just all have AI psychosis. So just wanted to start the episode with that disclaimer. And look, I get why people use AI. Like it's not that I don't understand why AI use is a thing. Okay, it's convenient, it saves you time, it helps you organize your thoughts, you know, in a really, really um efficient and effective way, sure. But I just, there's nothing that you can say truly that will convince me to use AI because it's just a plagiarism machine. Like it literally, I love how in in school, at least in the United States, our teachers basically really didn't want us to be plagiarizing, right? So we had to run everything through a plagiarism checker and da-da-da-da-da. And now they're encouraging us to use AI, which literally is like the purest form of plagiarism. Like it's literally just plagiarism in a nicely packaged, oh, this is convenient, it'll save you time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. AI is largely inaccurate. And it's also racist because it's been fucking fed a lot of racist shit. Okay. And I know that I'm not making this shit up. Like there have been actual anecdotes of people going and asking questions to Chat GPT and getting wildly racist and inappropriate responses in return. So I just want to start the episode saying that. Okay. But what I will say is the biggest reason, I mean, there are many, many, many reasons, but the biggest reason I will not be using AI and why you should be anti-AI is the environmental harm. Like I get that there are people out there who are saying, oh, you know, um, well, we should still use it anyway. Like eventually they're gonna figure out how to um how to be able to cool the the machines and the data centers down um without using all this like drinkable water, this water that's such a precious resource to us that, you know, we can't really replace very easily. And I just just all of that people who say those things that are like, oh, eventually we're gonna figure it out. Eventually, eventually when, when, and how much of the earth are we gonna fucking destroy before we figure out how to sustainably and ethically use AI? I I just I don't think there is a world anytime soon that we're ever gonna figure out how to A, sustainably or B ethically use AI. Like the those things feel very mutually exclusive to me. Okay. And again, how many, how many years are we expecting? How much of the earth are we gonna destroy? How many forests are we gonna cut down? How much water are we gonna use? How many fucking towns are we gonna pollute before we figure out how to use AI without destroying the environment? I just, is it worth it? I don't, I really don't think it is. And and what's so wild to me is that we have literally been using, you know, being being fed and like shoved AI down our throats for not even that long. It's only been a few years. And we, I mean, I'm not gonna say we were perfectly fine before AI, but like we were functioning okay. We were writing our own emails, we were able to put a fucking grocery list together. We were able to um just just organize our thoughts in a way that made sense for us without AI. And so I just don't think it's necessary for us to be using it now. I mean, when we talk about environmental harm, consumer reports show that a single large data center can use up to five million gallons of water a day for cooling. So that's about over 16,000 US households daily use. Okay, let me say that one more time. One, one large data center can use per day, each every fucking day, up to five million gallons of water. Okay, so each and every day, one data center, one large data center is using the equivalent of over 16,000 US households daily water use. How how is how does that make sense? How is that okay? And you might be saying, okay, well, not all of them are large data centers. Well, if we're gonna look at a medium-sized data center, that consumes up to 110 million gallons per year, and that's about what a thousand households use in one year. So one medium-sized data center can use about what a thousand households use in one year. And how many medium-sized data centers are we gonna be erecting all over the fucking United States and all over the fucking world, right? I mean, again, if you want more evidence, we will be linking all of these in the show notes as well. According to Science Direct, AI infrastructure is pushing electricity demand to levels comparable to entire countries. Entire countries! So basically, we just have a bunch of little countries worth of energy use and energy demand when we don't need to be. Okay. I know this episode is gonna sound like me, very angry Asian woman, very like yelly, very whatever, but like it's because I feel so strongly that you should be more anti-AI. We should all be more anti-AI. I don't even think I'm anti-AI enough, you know. Um, but yeah, so so more evidence, more evidence, if that's what you're looking for. Here you go. AI systems can emit 32 to 79 million tons of carbon dioxide, CO2, annually. And that's roughly the emissions of New York City, of the entirety of New York City. Okay, let me say that one more time. If you did not understand what I just said, AI systems that all y'all lazy fucks are currently using, they can emit 32 to 79 million tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of New York City's emissions. So basically, all over the world is just a bunch of New York cities that are emitting the same amount of fucking CO2 that New York City is emitting annually. How is that okay? How are we okay with that? And I know people are like, oh my god, but it like saves me so much time. It's you know, it gives me this, it gives me that. I just I'm just so so fucking frustrated. Like, what what is worth what is worth destroying this planet exponentially faster? Hmm is uh saving time so that you don't have to research a bunch of recipes for your weekly meals. Is that worth destroying the Amazon rainforest? Is it? Is oh I need to break up with this guy. So I need AI to write me a fucking breakup text that I could have just fucking wrote myself, or I could have learned how to communicate a little bit better, or I even could have hired a fucking relationship coach or a friendship coach or someone to help me craft a message. I could have asked a friend, I could have literally asked a goddamn fucking tree for advice over using AI. Like, why do we need to use AI? Why do we need to destroy the environment exponentially faster to be doing any of these things? We don't. We do not. Okay. The one thing that I won't do is use AI to accelerate the death of this planet. Okay. Yes, I get it. We don't have the same 24 hours. And people, especially people with kids, especially people who have a lot of responsibilities, especially people who are, you know, just looking to save time, looking to make their life more efficient, looking to make things a little bit easier. I get it. I get the desire to use AI for that. But it's is it worth like really, truly ask yourself, is it worth threatening our future, our future, the future of your kids, the future of everyone, in order to like save some time? Is it like truly, truly, I wanna know. I want to know if you think it's worth using all this precious water that we're gonna need to fucking drink when we're all dying of thirst and a bottle of water is fucking $68. Is it will it be worth it? Like, I honestly, I truly believe, and I know I might get canceled for this, but I'm just gonna fucking say it anyway. I believe that if you're the the people who are using AI the most should have the least access to water in the future. Because you're the ones who are gonna fucking cause us to have a water shortage. You're the ones that are going to cost, and let me just remind you that you, the people who are using AI as much as they are, you're probably gonna be one of the last people, unfortunately, affected by the water crisis. You know who's gonna be affected first? Indigenous groups, the global south, poor communities. All of those people are gonna be affected by your choice before you are. And that's a privilege that you have. And I guess it's okay for you to turn a blind eye and be like, I don't care. It makes it saves me time. I'm okay. Like just the fact that people can can come to that conclusion and be like, I don't care. It's not gonna affect me that much until whenever some unforeseeable future in the far off future. It's like that actually that reality is actually gonna hit you a lot sooner than you think. And I guarantee you, all you motherfuckers using AI and trying to justify your use of it are going to regret, regret those words. Regret actually using AI as much as you did when you're starving and you're dehydrated and you're dying of thirst and you can't find any drinkable water or arable land. Okay. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna say that. And the thing is, with AI, it's like it's it's it's a part of this whole culture that I'm still unlearning, to be honest, of instant gratification, of getting things quickly, right? Of short attention spans that, you know, TikTok and Instagram and all these, you know, platforms have exacerbated. But life doesn't need to be so fast. I know today with our modern technology and all this stuff, like that is a very contradictory statement of like, oh, life doesn't have to be, but the thing is, is life doesn't have to be that fast. We can slow down, we can enjoy the process, we can use our cognitive abilities that were gifted to us, that we have the privilege of being able to use. Like, I really just I know I'm I'm angry, angry, angry, and I'm just like, oh, fuck all of you, and da-da-da-da-da. Like, I get that I'm coming off that way, but I also just like, why can't we appreciate the process a little bit more? Why can't we appreciate slowing down and using our creative abilities and using our goddamn fucking brains? Okay, like it's okay to use your brain. It's okay, it's okay to use your brain. It's okay that it takes you a little longer to figure out how to put a spreadsheet together. It's okay that it takes you a little longer to write that post. It's okay that it takes you a little longer to, I don't know, um design your room, you know, the way that you want it to look. Like I just think we should use our fucking brains a little bit more. Honestly. I saw this quote that was like, um, why don't we use intelligence before we use artificial intelligence? Because it's like we literally have human intelligence. We have these incredible computational prowess abilities that were gifted to us in the form of a brain, and we're just like not using it. I mean, if you want a little bit of research on the cognitive effects of AI, the National Health Institute did some research on the cognitive effects of AI, and they've identified both immediate productivity boosts. So, yes, it boosts your productivity, but also long-term risks to cognitive skills. Okay, so they call that like cognitive atrophy or cognitive debt due to this like over-reliance on technology. So the National Health Institute did some quantifiable studies that show while AI can improve performance in the short term, it often reduces the mental effort required for deep thinking. Surprising. I think not. So the mental effort required for deep learning and critical thinking dropped 32%. So yeah, you're gonna write 60% faster, but your actual ability to use your fucking brain for critical thinking is gonna drop 32%, roughly. So if that's if that's the trade-off that you want, I guess, you know, I guess go for it. I mean, MIT Lab also did a study on memory failure, and they found that 83% of participants who use Chat GPT to just like write an essay or you know, do something in terms of written form, they were unable to remember a passage that they had just written shortly after finishing the task. So let me say that again. MIT Lab did a study where they found that 83% of participants who use Chat GPT to like write an essay, they were unable to remember that passage that they just wrote shortly after finishing the task. Okay. How how is that what we want to promote? Do we want do we want to promote lack of thinking, lack of remembering? Medium magazine even showed uh the brain connectivity drop. So EEG scans revealed that chat GPT users showed a 40% decrease in brain connectivity. So like the lower alpha and theta wave activity compared to those who didn't write with AI. 40% decrease in brain connectivity. Okay. I know we're just at the tippy top of research when it comes to AI and the long-term effects of AI. And I and I do believe, I don't have obviously scientific backed evidence on this, but like I truly believe that AI users, long-term AI users, it's gonna affect brain diseases and and diseases that we get as we age. For, for example, dementia, Alzheimer's, those kinds of things, because the brain elasticity is not is not there. It's not being honed, it's not being exercised. We are literally turning into that fucking scene in Wally where we're all just like just just loafs, just like these fat orbs sitting there consuming content and not actually using our brains for anything. I mean, I just environmental impact, the cognitive impact, if that's not enough for you, like what will be? Like, truly, what will be? What will actually get you to realize that this thing is destroying our environment, is destroying our brains, it's destroying everything that we've worked so hard to build. And I just, I mean, personally, I'm not a fan of flocking to be a part of things. Like, if you know anything about me and what you will learn about me on this podcast is that I'm not a trend chaser. In fact, I I personally hate chasing trends, and I'm not saying that to be like, oh, I'm a pick me. Like, I'm so much better than you because I'm not a trend chaser. Like, I'm not saying it to be that way, but I just I think that AI use is kind of like it's like the Instagram face of creativity. Do you know what I mean? Like, we all just become like you've seen Instagram face, you know, everyone's getting all these look and not knocking folks for like wanting to choose their bodies and doing the procedures that they want to do. If you want to do it, I'll all more power to you. That's fine. It's your body, it's your choice, it's not mine. But what I will say is that everyone's faces are kind of starting to look very similar. We're all starting to have like this, you know, similar elements when it comes to our faces. And all these people that just had all these unique features, they're they're going away. And that's kind of how I feel about how AI, what AI is doing to creativity is that we're all kind of just becoming the same versions of each other when it comes to using AI. And the uniqueness that we can bring to the internet, the uniqueness that we can bring to society, that we can bring to our work, that we can bring to the things that we're passionate about, it just kind of starts to go away. So, what I want, I mean, in this episode, I'm gonna complain a lot, as you've heard, for the last what, like 20-something minutes. But also, I do want to encourage us to just like be okay with life slowing down a little bit. Be okay with like showing up as ourselves and showing up authentically as ourselves, because I don't think we we do that enough these days. We do that enough anymore. Um, and I I want to know the real you. I don't I don't want to know what you have fed into AI to say as your voice or, you know. Whatever it is, like it's not actually your voice, you guys. AI doesn't actually use your voice, okay? Even if you train it, okay, it's still like a very pale attempt, a pale imitation at capturing what is uniquely you. You are so unique. You have your own thoughts, you have your own opinions. You don't need to be using a fucking robot, a fucking piece of technology to tell you how you feel about something, to tell you what to say or who to be. Do you know what I mean? Like, I also have a lot of people who have said to me, like, oh, but aren't you afraid of being left behind? Aren't you afraid of being left behind? Like that fucking rhetoric pisses me off so much because I personally don't see it as being left behind. I see it as sticking to my values, my values that care about, you know, as much as you might be like, oh, Kieran, you're such a pessimist. Sure. But like I care about seeing this earth be sustained and be protected for as long as we can, truly. And I see not use choosing, choosing consciously not to use AI as me sticking to my values, as me putting my foot down and saying I am not okay with what AI is promoting in terms of cognitive decline in in you know brain function, in um just pushing like go, go, go, getting things instant gratification, in destroying the environment. Like I just I think we need to be unafraid of humanity, be unafraid of being human and and everything that makes us like creative and makes us these beings that have built fucking huge cities that have created all of these incredible things that have made our lives better without AI. Do you know what I mean? Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Are you understanding what I'm trying to say here? I know I'm walking the line between like lots of frustration and anger and yelling, and just like hope for humanity and hope for all of us to get back to a place of just like we're human and it's okay to be human, and we don't need to be using all these tools that make us superhuman, that make us more than human, that make us not who we are, not who we're meant to be, which is following the process, tapping into our creativity, and trusting ourselves to show up as us. Do you know what I mean? And I also I will say, like, how are we not more suspicious that AI is free? Do you know what I mean? Like, why is AI free? Your apps, your subscriptions, everything else that you use is not free. You use, you get a monthly subscription, a yearly subscription, whatever it is. I think we need to be a lot more wary of things that are provided to us at zero cost. Because what in this world, in this economy, in this economy, we're gonna fucking be providing things for free. What does that mean? It means that you are the product. You are the product. They are selling you, your data. Everything you put into Chat GPT, into any of these AI chat boxes, you're they're selling your data, your searches, your habits, any details that you put in, the things you like to eat, the things you like to do, where you're spending your time, all of that stuff that you're putting into AI, they are gathering to be able to package it and sell it and use it to target you with more ads, use it to cause you harm, use it to. I'm sure there's a million things that I can't even think of that none of us can even fathom that these companies are using when it comes to us inputting all this shit into AI that they would never have known otherwise. Right. And I know a lot of people are like, oh, like your phone has been listening to you all for decades, like da-da-da-da-da. I get it. I get it. Like, I know it's hard to avoid completely. Okay. We're we're not gonna completely avoid all of these companies gathering our data and selling our data. You know, I know people are gonna listen to this and be like, I don't care. I've already, I already know my data is being sold and yada, yada, yada. And like, okay, I mean, I guess you do know that. But I just just at the very end of the day, I think the more harm reduction that we can do, the better. So, like, yes, we maybe we can't 100% avoid AI, but we can try. We can try to do 1% less. We can try to do 5% less, 10% less, 50% less, 80% less. Any amount is better than zero. Any effort that you put in to use AI a little bit less, to opt out of things that are using AI, to boycott some of these companies that are really causing harm, not just to you, but to the environment, to the world. Any amount of effort, like truly, is better than none. This is better than just ignoring everything I'm saying and ignoring all of these warnings that all of these people are trying to impose upon us and trying to enlighten us to and trying to open our eyes to. Just please, please, for the love of all that is holy, I just I want you to please consider. If you are an avid AI user, please just consider reducing your use a little bit, just to start. I would love for you to stop using it entirely. I would love for all of us to start using it entirely, but like let's just do what we can. And if that's starting at, oh, maybe I don't need to search this on Chat GPT, or oh, maybe I don't need to put this prompt into Claude. Let's just start there, right? In my business, I write about 80% of my job is writing, and I write everything, I literally write everything myself, and I know that's like uncommon these days, and da-da-da-da-da. But I just I hate writing. I hate writing, but I hate AI more, and I hate ruining the environment more, and I hate fucking deteriorating my brain and rotting my brain more, you know? So I just think that, you know, we really need to consider showing up as ourselves and just being okay with what we're given. And we don't need to be this most like the most productive, the most efficient, the most time-saving, the most whatever, because we could just be ourselves and we can just show up as ourselves. And we can create our own systems that work, right? You can batch your content, break tasks up into bite-sized pieces. Like things don't happen, have to happen all at once. I know when I do my reports, when I do my newsletters, I do what I can for the day and I respect my energy and I say, okay, I can do the first half of this report today, but I'm not gonna go and run through AI what I would want the second half of that report to be. I will go ahead and I will set that aside and I will say, I don't have the energy for that today. Let me handle it tomorrow, you know? And I get it. We don't have the same 24 hours. I am childless, I am young, and I am single. So I don't have right the same time responsibilities that some other people do, that a lot of other people do. And I get that. I get that I'm coming from a place of privilege in saying this, but I also think there are plenty of parents out there that are anti-AI. There are plenty of people out there. And the thing is, is like, they're like, oh, like what do you mean? What about the people who, you know, it's gonna help so much and da da da, and it's gonna help like progress technology forward and research and you know, all of this stuff. We can do that without AI. It'll take a little bit longer, yeah, but it won't destroy the environment faster. So it's like, what are we willing to? What's the trade-off that we're willing to have here? You know, you don't need AI to help you create a grocery list. You can put that together yourself. You don't need AI to write an email for you. There are plenty of templates on Google that you can use and tweak to your own voice, tweak to fit you, right? Like, why do we need to be training an AI bot when we could just train our own brains? I know for the folks that are are listening to this, you're like, what was that long pause for? It's me making an exasperated face at the fucking camera. Okay. So I know I've gone on for long enough just ranting and raving and and all that stuff. So what I do want to leave you with is please, please just let's slow down a little bit more. Let's be okay with not being perfect. Let's be okay with making mistakes and learning from them. Let's be okay with critical thinking. Good God, can the next trend be critical thinking? Please. I just I do want to leave you with a little bit of a challenge. Maybe something that you can do to prove to yourself that you don't need AI to be doing the things that you think you need AI for. So for my business owners out there, I want you to write a social media post. Just write one. Write one without AI. Okay, just one. Or business or not, if you're a business owner or not, go write an email without AI. Just to prove to yourself that you can do it. Okay. You can send it to me. You can send your social post to me. You can send your email to me so I can cheer you on. I will put my email and my DM in the show notes. You can find me, contact me, let me know that you were able to do something, put a grocery list together to design your your new living room, to um, you know, put a schedule together for car, car rides or, you know, whatever it is, carpooling. Um I don't I don't know what all people use AI for. I'm just like kind of coming up with things that that I've seen on the internet, but like do something today without AI. Do something that you normally would use AI for, I guess these days, that that you don't really need to. Do something that literally just you don't fucking break Cloud Open or whatever Chat GBT or whatever all those like platforms are called. If I'm pronouncing them wrong, I apologize because I literally don't fucking use them. I don't care about using them. But just go do something today or this week that doesn't use AI and send it to me because I want to see, I want to see that you've done it. And to all of my all of the listeners that are like, oh well, I'm not gonna listen to you. I don't like this podcast anymore. That's fine. Like, I don't like you either. I don't need you to be listening to this podcast and and disagreeing with me and thinking that you know AI is is good for for the world because it's not. So anyway, um, this is definitely a uh spicy take and a spicy episode two. I get that. I hope you do make it to episode three and that you do come back for more episodes of this podcast. I won't drag this on for too long because I know that uh I literally could probably talk for hours about how much I hate AI and how much I think that um it's destroying the planet and it's destroying our societies and it's destroying everything that makes us amazing and our communities that we've built and the villages that we've created, and just all the things that I think make humanity wonderful, I think AI is destroying and chipping away at. So you can agree with me, you don't have to. You can disagree with me. There are many people that do. There are people that I know well that that disagree with me and and you know are following the left behind rhetoric and are following the oh, it saves me time, and are making all these excuses for why they should be using AI and can be using AI and blah blah blah blah, and why I should, as Kieran, should be using AI. But um, I will always disagree with you. I will, this is a hill that I'm very much willing to fucking die on. So, anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you didn't, I guess goodbye forever. I guess you won't be tuning in. But thank you for making it all the way through and go out there and be a little more human. Please. Please. Alright, I'll see you next time. Ciao, ciao. If this episode gave you something to think about, please take it and do something with it. If you want more of this or you want to see what my life actually looks like, follow me on Instagram at it's almost with two L's. We'll be sure to link it in the show notes. You can also follow me at almost consulting or some juicier spicy. And if you're serious about getting your emails to convert, you can check out the conversion club. A monthly membership for founders ready to turn email into their most profitable and sustainable system. With expert guidance, plug and play tools, and something you'll actually use. Check it out at the link in the show notes. You in the next episode, yet for