Published: November 24, 2025
As a student, from elementary school to my time at USM, I have always put my all into everything I’ve written. Even if it wasn’t my best work, was rushed, or even late, it was always me, myself, and I. I have a huge disdain for generative artificial intelligence, and so should you. I’ve had people tell me, “Oh, just use ChatGPT”, and I want to be offended, but I can’t muster up hatred for users of ChatGPT. It does what it was marketed to do, and now it has almost a billion monthly users. It may seem like the AI bubble is never going to stop growing, but that doesn’t mean we just give up and give in. We must persevere and use our minds, no matter the new technologies that debut out of Silicon Valley.
Remember how your parents always said TV or video games would rot your brain? They were right, just about the wrong things. These AI generative platforms are what will do us in. This AI takeover is literally making us dumber and making all of our technology stupider at the same time. Even Google is a mirage of what it once was, due to the implementation of AI overviews that take from the most popular listings, not the factual ones. Even Grammarly is powered by generative AI now! Everything that makes us distinct and unique is being stripped away by the misdirection of “productivity” and “ease”. Tools that aided us now aim to replace us. Challenges are what push us to find solutions, and solutions push us to learn and further that knowledge to others. Connectivity has always been the end goal, but I think we got lost along the way. We gave up memories for echoes of those memories, and we gave up learning so we can get back to whatever is occupying our attention, in the name of churning material out faster for less money. Coca-Cola used generative AI for their Christmas commercials, this year and last, and they proudly exclaimed that this year used “even less people” like it’s a competition for companies to compete in who can annihilate the human element first.
People will adapt and learn, but these generated images, videos, and texts are blurring the lines. ChatGPT is trying to render writing as a tedious task. SoraAI and other generative platforms imply that art is a commodity and not something that takes years to perfect. I can’t draw for squat, but you’ll never catch me generating imagery. I’d rather pay an artist or platform them than have a computer steal their work and me pass it off as my own. Even AI “artists” are up in arms about their prompts being stolen, as if they’re demonstrating cosmic irony. Regardless of how you feel about generative AI programs and tools, we should all make an effort to make things more human again before it’s too late.
