09. My vile hatred towards GenAI

I absolutely hate that every company out there is trying to shove AI down my throat. Like as if Big AI's dick is trying to get sucked everytime I use my phone to Google stuff. Posters on buses, screens on trains, and every pixel available to be capitalised has been bought by a company that is either promoting their own AI tools or using AI slop in their marketing collaterals. The worst I have seen is from Agoda, an app that you can book flights and hotels on. Their YouTube video ads are disgusting, every pixel is generated by AI except maybe their disclaimers. I will never use that app.

Singapore definitely encourages this, your skillfuture credits could be used to offset a government approved AI course. Genuinely why do we need classes that teach us how to generate prompts? Can't we use the same damn tool to generate prompts too?

Universities have also been encouraging this for at least the past two years (granted that I have only finished two years of my bachelor's). I had a communication module that had a timed assessment which can only be completed if you used AI, I recall it was about writing a business email within 20 minutes. The reading of the task probably took at least 5 minutes, leaving me with only 15 minutes to write. I may be wrong about the exact duration but my takeaway of the situation was 'use AI or fail'. It was just reported in the StraitsTimes that NUS has made it compulsory for incoming students to take AI courses as part of the graduating requirement (11 August 2026).

Even group projects were hijacked by group members using AI recklessly. I recall a groupmate citing an AI website where all the articles were AI generated. Like are you taking the piss? A university sophomore that cannot write a proper report with legitimate sources? How lazy can one be, where they cannot take the simple courtesy to check that they are not citing fake sources for a group project? What's the point of attending university if you cannot put in the hard work to sit on your ass and write a paper with academic integrity? Did your intellectual curiosity fly out your window when OpenAI released ChatGPT?

What I hate the most about AI is that soulless and money-hungry organisations are using it to replace artists. In Singapore, we have seen AI generated posters in promotion of national day. We see things like Indonesian flags, inverted crescent and stars, and improper grammar. On the day of our 61st year since independence, a Singaporean AI-generated film opened in theatres. These have to be approved by a government agency, GRCs for posters and IMDA for films. So my question is, what is the government trying to tell Singaporeans? Do they lack the initiative to find real artists to make posters? Are we lacking creative film directors and passionate actors? Why must we succumb to the enslopification of everything?

I don't use GenAI anymore due to three reasons, cost to environment, outright plagiarism and reduction of friction. This obviously isn't an academic paper, so I'm not citing shit. Still better than using AI cos I am putting my thoughts into words by thinking, drafting, rewriting and editing.

1. Cost to environment

One large AI data center can use as much clean water as a small town with around 10,000 to 50,000 people. The data centers are currently using potable water to cool the processor chips. There are reports of people being pushed out of their homes to build these hostile infrastructures. The water of neighboring houses are reported to be toxic, despite the denials. I understand that the companies are now trying to reuse the water in some way or filter the water before releasing it to public water systems. In my opinion, it is not soon enough. To build these centres, land also has to be cleared. Immediately, wildlife is fucked. They don't get to bargain. We humans cannot even bargain for ourselves, let alone be a voice for flora and fauna. Data centers definitely generate more heat than your average building, temperatures of land around the buildings increase by an average of 2 degree celcius. In 2026, have we not as a species finally understood the concept of fuck around and find out? Do people still deny climate change? It has been hot as fuck in Singapore as well as everywhere else, there was even a heat wave in Europe.

2. Outright plagiarism

These GAIs are built on the backs of centuries of writers, artists and scientists. There are zero credits given, unless you ask it to cite. [I understand that this is ironic, considering that I barely cited any sources here, but again, not an academic paper!] The LLMs can even hallucinate a source for you! Art/music generators scrape the internet and use work by humans to replicate it. It is stealing from hardworking individuals and giving it to people who do not want to put in the work to create. I personally cannot draw, play music or sing for my life but I don't use these tools to generate stuff and pass it as my own creations. I believe that whatever is generated will always be slop as there is no human experience behind them. If you cannot draw, practice or buy art from real artist.

There is an argument that people with disabilities should be allowed to use these tools to create. As a person with cerebral palsy, respectfully, fuck off. There are many people with disabilities that are artists, musicians and other creatives. Van Gogh and Dostoevsky were mentally ill, Beethoven was deaf and could still compose, Stevie Wonder is blind. There are many other disabled artists that may not be celebrities that do not use AI, see https://www.artforgood.sg/featured-artists. If you really cannot make art or are not passionate about it, like me, just accept it and do something else. For example, writing is rather accessible, take out your laptop, sit on your ass and type. Find something you are mad about or something you love, and write. Write a letter to someone you miss, send it or don't, it doesn't matter. Who gives a shit if my writing is bad? My purpose is to at least create something.

3. Reduction of friction.

I will admit that this is the main reason I used AI in the past. It is easy to write a prompt and ask a LLM to generate stuff for you. I can copy a whole research question and ask it to give me sources or even write a paragraph for me. But it all comes back to my previous question, what's the point of attending university if you cannot put in the hard work to sit on your ass and write a paper with academic integrity? Why should we give up our ability to interact with academic sources and synthesise them for the sake of convenience? If ChatGPT can generate a report, Claude can generate a powerpoint, and some other tool can convert it to a video and make it a presentation, then why are we still in school? There is probably a reason that employers still want to hire people with academic qualifications for now. They would want somebody that stands out in skills like critical thinking and problem-solving. I hope they are not keen in hiring somebody who can write some prompts into a machine and generate reports for them. Because at this moment in time, who can't? I'd argue that constantly using AI as your tool to generate output diminishes your ability to think critically because you have experienced no friction to produce it.

Generative AI is poison for your enviroment, disrespectful towards your pioneers and an insult to your intellectual curiosity.

What should we do to show our disagreement of using AI in the creative scene? We can boycott artists that integrate AI in their output. I avoid films, music, social media accounts that utilises Gen AI significantly. I don't think that film makers will willingly admit that they used AI in their processes. However, makers of shit like the Singapore AI film should be shunned by society. For music, it will usually be made known by the public if they suspect that an album was made with AI, e.g., Tyga. And for now it is noticeable if a reel is made using AI. I think avoiding AI-tainted stuff is a way to be in solidarity with human creatives. We should buy things made by real people. We can show support to local and international artists by increasing our interaction with them. Play their music, go to their concerts, buy books by genuine writers, visit art galleries and follow creators that are passionate in their crafts.

There might be a very small exception though, or at least something I still have the very least sympathy for. I have seen a lot of small local businesses that use AI in their posters or adverts. There is a sort of dissonance in these cases. It might be difficult to balance between trying to support local businesses and avoiding AI. Supporting these businesses can signal to them that customers are in support of their AI usage. However, I think supporting local businesses might overweigh my need to avoid AI.

It is probably true that AI will be integrated into every aspect of society within this decade, it seems like using AI is inevitable. I may give in and use AI to help make spreadsheets, analyse financial information and speed up deliverables in the corporate world. But I will never use these tools to replace art, literature and whatever I consider makes us humans.