AI’s mess: are we cleaning up more than what we’re saving?

If AI is so good, why don’t we work just four days a week? Right now, it seems like we’re sweating more than before just to clean up its mess.

Opelika, a small town in Alabama, is using AI for the funniest reason. It seems to be monitoring fountains to detect bubbles, because putting soap in public water basins is a prank that costs the town tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Is that what privacy is worth? Subscribe to being surveilled in public so the local government can save a few bucks?

That’s just one curious story, and we don’t really know – maybe the local residents are just fine with it.

We get it. There’s no time to think. Everyone who runs into any sort of problem, be it a requirement to optimize processes at work or solve some minor relationship crisis, is now likely to use an AI application. In many cases, it does the opposite of helping – it’s not a lifebuoy but a rock tied around your neck.

The problem is that AI bleeds into your life mostly without consent. Tech companies add functionalities and new buttons so a user can seamlessly start using AI. For example, Google started summarizing my emails for me. And while I actually find it quite helpful because I receive hundreds of emails per day, I might just be losing my ability to read.

I’m currently halfway through Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling), and I am getting increasingly anxious about the plot. “Can it just get to the point already?” I find myself thinking. Endless doomscrolling, in combination with AI digesting content on my behalf, is slowly depriving me of my favorite thing in the whole world.

I’m exaggerating, of course. But, if Kindle adds AI to summarize books one day, then we’re definitely screwed.

I have a rule that helps me dive into a good book every evening. Whether I feel like reading or not, I have to read at least ten pages. Ten pages are usually enough to reset the scrolling mindset. Instead of ten, I end up reading at least 50-100 pages, bringing back the joy of reading to my life.

Some attempts are being made to measure AI’s impact on people’s well-being. This recent one suggests that it might be doing little harm to worker well-being, but it’s too early to tell.

Well, some developers openly say they hate vibe-coding. Of course, it’s not the technology at fault here, but people who are pushing it down our throats for the sake of innovation.

If AI is so good, why don’t we, as Bernie Sanders said, introduce a four-day workweek?

“You’re a worker, your productivity is increasing because we give you AI, right? Instead of throwing you out on the street, I’m gonna reduce your workweek to 32 hours,” the Vermont senator, who introduced a bill requiring a 32-hour workweek last year, shared his views in a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan.

I am just not feeling the vibe. I’m glad the concerned voices are getting louder. While we might not be able to stop the AI train when it comes to our workplaces, it’s getting a lot of backlash. Creators toasted Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, for his AI thumbnail generator that allegedly stole artwork from human artists.

Another stellar example of how AI is burning (literally) human art is Anthropic destroying millions of books in favour of its AI.