Leave me behind

“Stop hiring humans.”

A few months ago, I stepped outside my apartment building in New York City to find these words plastered to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus stop.

“The era of AI employees is here.”

An ad, paid for by the artificial intelligence company Artisan, features this emboldened call to action, layered atop a woman’s face. That day, the face stared me down as I waited for the bus that would take me to work. 

It’s my prerogative to be skeptical of AI as a student journalist. As a critical thinker, recreational historian and news-junkie, it’s my closely-held belief that we can and should reject AI’s “inevitability.” 

I find it very difficult to engage in conversations with others about AI usage. Even when the person across the table from me acknowledges the risks and moral qualms that seem so obvious to me. Because with every conversation, an identical line rolls off of their tongue so simply, as if repetitive marketing meticulously placed it there. 

“It’s here whether you like it or not. You need to use it or you’ll be left behind.”

To which I offer a response — leave me behind. 

I dare you. 

The very large, impossible-to-minimize part of this conversation that somehow is always, mysteriously left unmentioned is the catastrophic environmental effects. 

Excessive AI usage and expansion requires physical storage space – in the form of data centers – that devour immeasurable amounts of water and energy each day.

According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, large or “hyperscale” AI data centers consume up to 5 million gallons of water every day. Such an excessive amount of a finite resource must come from somewhere. For countless communities across the country, like Morgan County, Georgia for example, data centers have deprived residents of clean tap water. 

For decades, our artists, authors and greatest thinkers have left us a papertrail of tangible warnings. 

Novels, movies, television shows and artistic statements have stories born out of the same place: a society too far gone because it forgot to question injustices. Or worse, it stopped caring all together. 

It’s time to stop pretending that we possess no control. While it can feel like AI has permeated globally like an all-consuming, all-destroying tsunami wave, we hold the greatest amount of power. 

It’s our responsibility to affirmatively say “no.”

AI can only threaten our ecosystems, livelihoods and beautifully-woven human communities if we give it and the people behind it the power to do so. 

Dare to question the narrative being fed to you. Dare to challenge the powerful who are counting on your apathy. Dare to depend on your knowledge and critical judgement. 

Dare to be left behind. 

The next time you hear someone echo that overused, meaningless line, ask “why?”

Ask, “who is behind the perpetuation of this narrative? Who aims to profit off of AI’s inevitability and usefulness?” 

Because the answer to that question is not you, the human whose job is soon to be replaced. 

It’s not lost on me that the advertisement I witnessed in July featured a woman’s face. It’s not lost on me that for many AI marketing campaigns encouraging the replacement of human labor, the faces of those advertisements are often women. 

That ad threatened me that day. It said: “your job, your future is next.” Mine is the work and creation that will be replaced. 

Dare to challenge AI’s notion of inevitability. We have the power to preserve the value of human creation.

And to anyone who has made it this far — yes, I made the very human, stylistic choice to use em-dashes in this story because I’m very fond of them.