Why Are so Many Still Opposed to Using AI?

Why are so many still not using AI?

Not only is the number of people who still haven't heard of ChatGPT alarming, but the bashing of people for using AI is everywhere.

"This generation cannot think for themselves"

'Generation [insert one here, but one most likely born between the years of 1997 onwards] cannot think for themselves, cook, or socialise'. Just a few of the talking points circulated by news outlets and social media creators.

I remember one of my friends in her late 60s mentioning: 'This generation would sooner ask AI than think for themselves,' to which my possibly unpopular response would be—ok, so what?

AI can summarise a legal document in seconds, help me check if £40 for that Vinted adidas hoodie is a cheeky offer or not, and answer 'how does a snake poop?' without me even needing to open Google (well, if you're not using Google AI Mode of course!)

I think it boils down to: Why should one make their life harder for themselves by not embracing the new?

With the advent of the internet, the world's information is at our fingertips. Arguing that critical thinking is 'dead' because of the internet is ridiculous, and subsequently nonexistent—at least at this point in history, because everybody (at least ~5 billion of us), including my friend mentioned earlier, are direct beneficiaries of it. So why do so many people think critical thinking is dead because of AI?

There's Money in Being 'Moral'

As I said before, one of the biggest mediums for anti-AI content is the news, and I mean particularly mid to large digital newspapers, and so-called 'video-essay' channels on YouTube. Presumably, because the technology is so new (at least in its current form), and less familiar audiences are an easy target.

One of the biggest selling points (other than fear, urgency, and well... sex) is making your audience feel moral, and this new world of AI gives creators and journalists a topic to drive clicks and ad revenue by making their readers feel above the so-called 'AI-dependent'.

Not a new script by any means, just a new talking point.

1990s - "They watch too much TV"

2010s - "They are glued to their smartphones"

2020s - "They just ask AI for everything"

The anti-AI crowd are actually using it, though

To be truly 'anti-AI', a person would have to relinquish such modern luxuries as: Google search, Netflix recommendations, Spotify recommendations, routing via Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps, email spam filters, translation tools, banking fraud detection, the list goes on.

We have already been enrolled into the world of AI, and have been for quite some time.

For context, one of the earliest NLP programs was ELIZA, released by MIT in 1966 (see: this). AI-powered spam filters have been a thing since the 1990s (ML, but still regarded as a form of AI), see Microsoft Research's work on spam filters here (1997). It is a fad now, but the final boss battle on that PS2 game you used to play back in 2004 is powered by nothing other than AI.

Criticism is not all bad

The point of this article isn't to dismiss all criticism of AI as bad; there definitely are bad elements to AI in its current form and how it can affect people. But there is, undeniably, a gigantic double standard in the sense that one paradigm of technology, e.g. washing machines and refrigerators, are accepted as everyday life, but usage of LLMs and other forms of AI is equated with being 'lazy' and 'eroding critical thinking'.

Did Google Maps erode our ability to read printed paper maps? Yes (hyperbole, for this analogy). Did printed paper maps erode our ability to hand-draw maps from memory? Yes. Did hand-drawing maps from memory erode our ability to navigate using the stars? Lol, don't worry, I'll stop there.

Each one eroded something, but each solution was eventually accepted, so what's different now?