Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism, the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form. Here’s this week’s question from a reader, condensed and edited for clarity.

I’m an AI engineer working at a medium-sized ad agency, mostly on non-generative machine learning models (think ad performance prediction, not ad creation). Lately, it feels like people, specifically senior and mid-level managers who do not have engineering experience, are pushing the adoption and development of various AI tools. Honestly, it feels like an unthinking melee.

I consider myself a conscientious objector to the use of AI, especially generative AI; I’m not fully opposed to it, but I constantly ask who actually benefits from the application of AI and what its financial, human, and environmental costs are beyond what is right in front of our noses. Yet, as a rank-and-file employee, I find myself with no real avenue to relay those concerns to people who have actual power to decide. Worse, I feel that even voicing such concerns, admittedly running against the almost blind optimism that I assume affects most marketing companies, is turning me into a pariah in my own workplace.

So my question is this: Considering the difficulty of finding good jobs in AI, is it “worth it” trying to encourage critical AI use in my company, or should I tone it down if only to keep paying the bills?

Dear Conscientious Objector,

You’re definitely not alone in hating the uncritical rollout of generative AI. Lots of people hate it, from artists, to coders, to students. I bet there are people in your own company who hate it, too.

But they’re not speaking up — and, of course, there’s a reason for that: They’re afraid to lose their jobs.

Honestly, it’s a fair concern. And it’s the reason why I’m not going to advise you to stick your neck out and........

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