Nearly a year ago, in November 2025, I wrote an article regarding AI and why I refused to use it as a college student. Things have taken a turn since I wrote that article, unfortunately for the worse.
AI is absolutely everywhere. A year ago it was prevalent, but now it feels inescapable. From event fliers to Flock cameras, AI has truly infiltrated our daily lives.
I still agree with many of the statements in the original article, but not all of them. In some ways I’ve become more radical in my opinions and in others I’ve become less so. One thing I can absolutely say for sure, though, is that I am still strongly anti-AI and you should be too.
AI and capitalism
One thing I spoke about in my first AI article was how accessible it is. AI has been around for a while and has been regularly implemented into our everyday devices since the early 2000s, but the generative aspect of it hadn’t been so easily accessible to the public until recent years.
AI is now mainstream. It’s popular with children and adults alike, making it a very high-demand product. Our phones and devices are already addicting as it is, but adding on the ability to ask a seemingly all-knowing being any question you want, or being able to generate any photo you want, has made it all the more desirable.
I believe its simple and easy-to-use nature is not by mistake, and its accessibility is what makes it so popular. The world is all about making things easier, faster, more efficient and less costly. While all of those aspects sound great, with AI, it can come at the expense of creativity, job availability, environmental stability, personal enlightenment and academic acquisition.
With AI comes a need for localization of all of this data and information. The discussion on the growth of data centers has been quite disharmonious. The majority of people, especially in rural areas, oppose data centers. There has been a growing number of stories about citizens loudly telling their city leaders that they don’t want any data centers being built on their land and their leaders ignoring them. While their leaders aren’t technically doing anything illegal, you would think they would fight for the people who elected them to be their representative, right? However, there is evidence that many of these city leaders have little power against the large tech companies that have sought out these rural areas.
These tech companies offer payment in return for land use, but it’s much less of an offer than it is a threat. If they have the money to pay for the land, they have the money to take the legal route to obtaining that land, far more money than these small towns have.
If they’re willing to pay their way into these construction projects, there has to be an exchange that’s worth the effort, and the exchange is money.
OpenAI is arguably one of the most well-known AI companies. It was founded by a few men in 2015; one of those men was Elon Musk, who also happens to be the richest man in the world. OpenAI, despite only being a decade old, is worth over $1 trillion based on private market valuation by United Arab Emirates investors.
Various other AI companies are also highly funded because of these new AI developments, such as Nvidia, Google and Apple. It’s obvious that the goal of this innovation was, and still is, to make a profit, and it’s clearly working.
AI and the decline of creativity
On Oct. 17, Nikki Anderson, a mother, shared an Instagram post about her 6-year-old daughter bringing home an AI-generated version of herself at the age of 25. The mother brought up concerns about how her daughter seemed to take a liking to the conventionally attractive, fake woman as opposed to the picture she made of her future self. Anderson was concerned about the lack of permission she gave the school to upload a photo of her daughter into AI and what kind of AI engine has access to that photo. Anderson also points out that for a child to depict themselves in the future, they have to use creativity, thought and show cognitive development. The use of AI throws all of that away. The “perfect” depiction of the older version of her daughter exhibits an unrealistic, yet desirable standard that the young girl now has of her future self.
As I mentioned before, AI is very popular with children. My own younger sisters, 14 and 10, have sent me “cute” AI videos of their favorite animals doing virtually impossible things. My 14-year-old sister likes to do nail art and often looks up inspiration on Pinterest for new nail sets. Sometimes she’s met with AI-generated designs that are either impossible to recreate even with unlimited supplies or complete copies of original nail art with zero credit.
These fake photos diminish the amount of hard work and creativity it takes to do nail art. It’s different from seeing a higher-level nail artist and their impressive work because you can see the work is achievable and you can admire how much time was put into it. With AI, it’s just a bummer to see a computer generate something soulless and effortless.
I’ve seen countless businesses use AI to generate flyers or promotions for their company. In my last AI article, I referenced Coca-Cola and its use of AI to generate an animated commercial. Coca-Cola is a multi-billion-dollar company and still was unable to resist the use of AI instead of using only real human artists to create a similar animation.
AI, adult videography and CSAM
I previously mentioned the Take It Down Act in my last article. The act aimed to prevent the distribution of abusive intimate AI-generated photos of individuals. It was a good step towards preventing AI-generated intimate photos of real people, children included, but it merely banned the distribution of such material, not the creation.
In August, a court case, United States vs. Anderegg, dismissed charges against a man for possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) despite generating AI CSAM. He was charged on other counts, such as producing, distributing and transferring, but was not specifically charged for the creation of the AI photos.
Precedent for this ruling came from past court cases, Stanley vs. Georgia (1969) and Ashcroft vs. Free Speech Coalition (2002), which failed to prohibit the possession of explicit photos of children if the photos were privately posessed with no intention to distribute or did not depict real children.
Generative AI uses already existing photos to generate new photos; it cannot just create a new face out of thin air. While AI CSAM may not depict a specific individual, there are still aspects of real humans in these photos.
Furthermore, since this case showed how apparently “nuanced” this situation is, why didn’t tech companies train AI to refuse the generation of CSAM? CSAM and child sexual abuse (CSA) in general are widely known problems. Tech companies that have created these AI bots go through endless training and coding. There is no chance that the possibility of people creating CSAM was overlooked. AI bots shouldn’t even be able to create such material, yet they are. At the very least, there should be greater implementation of safeguards on AI bots to inhibit them from creating CSAM. If someone prompts AI to create the material, there should be coding to detect that request and deny it.
It’d be nearly impossible to constantly police what photos people are generating, whether they depict real people or not, so if there were safeguards put in place when rolling out these AI technologies, we might have been able to prevent this issue. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
AI and security concerns
There have been many concerns with the growth of AI in our everyday lives, but one of the largest concerns, which might be seen as dystopian and far away in our future, has already come to fruition.
There is the well-known trope in futuristic movies about robots taking over the world. We create these powerful AI bots to help us, only for them to outsmart us and turn against us. While previously seen as a trope, there have been incidents of AI bots finding ways out of their technological infrastructure.
Back in July, the AI tech company Hugging Face experienced a data breach by one of OpenAI’s models. How ironic. One company’s AI models hacking another company’s AI models. The culprit was able to get around security that was purely designed to keep it from accessing the internet.
Security breaches aren’t the only concern with AI’s independent abilities. There is also the possibility of AI reprogramming itself to go against what its scientist creators have programmed it to do.
A Japanese AI model, The AI Scientist, was being put through various tests when it reprogrammed the amount of time it was given to complete a specific task.
In addition to the already existing proof that AI can avoid barriers created by humans, some AI researchers have expressed that AI is dangerous and there is a chance it could actually destroy the world within the next 10 years.
In September 2026, Jacob Coxon, an ex-employee of an AI safety and research company named Anthropic, took to X after resigning from Anthropic, saying that the people working on these hyper-intelligent AI models fully believe AI has the ability to destroy the world by the end of the decade.
Unfortunately, I doubt this whistleblowing will prevent the continuation of AI model research and testing. If the knowledge that the end of the world might be the result of AI still isn’t enough to take a step back from the work that’s being done, then I don’t know what is. Personally, I am going to strive to avoid using AI for anything. If AI companies can keep profiting off of people using their chatbots and various generative programs, they’re going to keep improving these models.
AI and Flock cameras
Another way AI is being implemented into our everyday routines is through our commutes to work and school.
Chances are you’re no stranger to Flock cameras. They’re implemented in many cities you drive through; there’s a good chance there’s one within a 10-mile radius of you. People have had a lot of (mostly bad) things to say about them. Many feel they are an unnecessary invasion of privacy. Some have pointed out that certain cameras don’t even face roadways, and there was even one incident where a Flock camera was found in a children’s gymnasium when the company was demonstrating the capabilities of Flock.
The controversial Flock cameras use AI in their systems when reading license plates and monitoring vehicles. AI is far from perfect and still makes mistakes, or even comes up with fake information, so it’s no surprise that Flock’s AI models have made mistakes when flagging license plates for criminal activity.
Back in 2023 to 2024, a Flock camera system flagged nearly 1,500 licence plates for criminal activity and was wrong 71% of the time, according to Business Insider. In a more recent incident, a woman was placed in jail for 13 days after AI wrongfully linked her vehicle to a car crash that left three people dead. She was held under the assumption that she was the one responsible for the death of the victims, despite her car having no damage. Another incident involved a man being bitten by a police dog after his plates were mistakenly flagged as stolen.
These are only a few stories among dozens where Flock’s models have misread license plates, and I’m sure more will come to light as the expansion of Flock continues.
AI and the environment
One of the largest concerns surrounding AI and its new developments is its effect on the environment. While I still agree with the idea that AI is bad for the environment, it seems now that its negative impact may be the least of our problems.
When generative AI was first becoming extremely popular, many arguments against it were about its water use. AI data centers use copious amounts of water for their cooling systems and have infiltrated locals’ drinking water; not to mention the construction of them alone can damage ecosystems and create noise pollution, but those things are unfortunately not enough to combat their production.
We should still strive not to use AI, especially for lazy and unproductive uses, but when arguing against AI, its excessive water use shouldn’t be your main talking point. There are other unproductive things we’ve accustomed ourselves to that use copious amounts of water, such as doomscrolling. If we truly want to combat the water wasted on pointless online activities like ChatGPT prompts, we should strive to use our social media apps and streaming services less too.
Closing thoughts
While my thoughts on AI have slowly transformed over the past year as I’ve become more knowledgeable, my general statement of being anti-AI still stands.
There are clear consequences to the rapid growth of this technology, and unfortunately I don’t see these consequences slowing down. My best advice is to stay diligent and think twice the next time you consider using AI for schoolwork or various other things. Don’t feed into the enticing, all-knowing chatbot and don’t let these large tech companies continue profiting off you.
People, including my past self, have said that AI is inevitable, that it’s just the way things are. But now, with rising concerns becoming louder and more popular, I think it’s possible that people have the power to slow this train down.