Like a growing segment of the human population, I hate AI too. I’m sick of all the unwarranted hype and over the top media attention. I’m exhausted by all the “cute” images that folks keep forcing the tech to regurgitate just so they can share them with me and their friends online. I’m exasperated from reading poorly written articles, obviously assembled by one lazy human and a million dollars worth of wasted computer time. Oh, and I freely admit to rooting for the economic collapse of this technology. I cheer every headline detailing its financial losses and all predictions of the bursting investment ‘bubble’ that is to come.

Unlike many haters of AI, I’m comfortably retired and don’t stay up nights worried that a computer will take my job due to it, my worries are the usual stuff. It will destroy job creation for certain segments of the population who can least afford it. But that’s a minor nit to pick compared to it being the largest misallocation of public funds since forever. The promises made to its investors will require supernatural amounts of power. More than the current grid can deliver. The need for an equally supernatural share of cooling will stress the climate.

Here in Indiana citizens have started rejecting these massive datacenter projects as they realize that 200,000 square foot facilities will result in only a handful of jobs, mostly of the maintenance and security variety. The tradeoff for building roads and other infrastructure with tax dollars for these billionaire wet dreams being perpetually higher local energy costs due to required utility upgrades and the potential environmental risks from circulating billions of gallons of lake water.

The AI rejection movement has gone global as well.

Even if I were to discount the fact that the current arc of the AI business model is already failed given it requires more power, more cooling, and more money than even God can provide, I’m also struck by the obvious. Those currently cheerleading this effort are mostly the same boneheads who spearheaded the now failed Social Media movement. Remember when Twitter was young and fresh with the promise that it would change the world for the better? I do. But as it turned out, Social Media was a massive failure that only helped rig political elections and destroy countless lives, mostly young lives in a senseless orgy of absolutely nothing.

It, too, caused financial ruin. While I wouldn’t call Elon Musk “broke”, I remember when he bought Twitter for billions of dollars:

Elon Musk lost approximately $25 billion on Twitter, now known as X, since acquiring it for $44 billion in late 2022. The platform’s value has significantly declined, with reports indicating it is now worth around $9.2 billion, an 80% decline from the purchase price.

An old joke amongst investors was that the quickest way to turn a billion dollars into a million dollars was to buy an airline. The same can be said for Social Media which has been a massive financial and human failure any way you slice it.

I believe AI will cause much more turbulence in the short-term, mostly in the political world. How will it be possible for there to be fair and free elections, assuming you value those ideals, when fake advertisements and scandalous videos, indistinguishable from the real thing, can be easily made using AI, and might not even require human intervention? The verbal command “create political adverts demonizing my opponent and slanted to ‘fill-in-the-blank’ kind of voters has no doubt already tilted the table.

So, short-term, we can expect more questionable elections and more human carnage. Not to mention the massive loss of investment for 401k holders and other less stock savvy investors whose greedy eyes only see the potential upside to their AI heavy portfolios, blind to the fact they are being played by the largest misallocation of funds in the history of the world.

But after the enshittification of everything, will come a fresh start.

Mankind will become so frustrated dealing with the fake and phony baloney world the oligarch’s created and have enslaved them to, there will come a new freedom movement. A demand for authenticity unlike the world has ever seen. The backlash could be so severe that people actually opt for handmade over mass-produced items and that might create yet another massive upset in the financial world. That’s okay. Re-balancing the entire planet won’t be simple and clean.

I believe most humans prefer to speak with a live person instead of a shitty phone bot. Most prefer to have our food order taken by a human and not a kiosk. Most prefer human to self-checkout at the grocery. Most of us prefer to read news acquired by human effort and written by human hands. Most prefer a human house cleaner and babysitter, not robots. Most of us enjoy actually driving an automobile and don’t want a driverless experience. Ditto for the bus, train, or plane.

I don’t even understand the allure of a driverless auto, what, if you don’t have to drive you have more time to work? That’s a special kind of stupid.

A growing number of manufacturers are responding to all of this, even if its via insincere marketing:

“AI can’t generate sand between your toes,” one read. “No one on their deathbed ever said: I wish I’d spent more time on my phone,” said another.

That ribbing came from Polaroid, promoting its point-and-click Flip camera.

Others seem a little more serious.

Dove was one of the first major beauty brands to take a stand against AI and how it generates images perpetuating stereotypical and unrealistic beauty standards. In April 2024, the company launched “Campaign for Real Beauty,” pledging to never use advertising with AI-generated women and continuing its commitment to authentic, diverse representation.

Bottom Line: Like Social Media, AI has tainted reality and our world. It’s bad and it’s going to become much, much worse. But change is coming and people will eventually reject the artificial world, and create a new authentic existence for ourselves and our progeny. The billionaires keep pushing the blue pill, but Neo took the red pill and I think most of us will too.

In tiny pockets of hope, the human journey back to authentic is already underway…