Generative AI has gone too far. Many have said it, but I need to add my human voice to the cacophony.

There are many reasons I dislike the growing use of generative AI. It is environmentally disastrous, necessitating massive, water-guzzling datacentres. In a world where many people do not have access to clean water and where countries like Australia suffer worsening droughts, people are unthinkingly wasting it to carry out basic tasks like sending an email or writing a grocery list.

Your cousin’s son is right now using litres of water to see what all the ninja turtles look like with his face. Of course, we all want to not send emails and to see what we look like as Raphael, but is it really worth the waste? The waste of the water, and the wasting of your brain, your inventiveness? People are already asking a machine to have their thoughts for them, and it’s just going to get worse. The technology arrived five minutes ago; you are not dependent on it, no matter what the marketing machine is telling you.

And it’s not like it’s creating incredible things, either. None of the GenAI content I have seen – out in the world, or specifically for........

© The Guardian