I don't want any damn AI

I love animation. I’ve always enjoyed it. It reminds me of simpler times, where I would wake up early on a Saturday, grab my blanket to the living room and watch Animaniacs. I would spend hours watching cartoons and I would often draw my own stuff in the meantime.

Growing up, I’ve kept my love for arts. I still love some good music, good drawings, animations, comics and cartoons. Watching good movies, taking good pictures.

Throughout my teens I tried to keep up with my craft as a hobby while I was studying something that would be useful for my life – technology. I also loved computers, I was a big nerd. I was the kid who knew every new thing the internet had to offer, whether it was Google, YouTube, Twitter, etc. A true geek.

Landed a job in tech at 17, in a huge company. Stayed there for 4 years, learning all kinds of stuff, from software development to infosec, to hacking, to Linux systems administration, to kernel tuning, to kubernetes, etc.

I’m a senior engineer now, but one thing bugs me a lot.

You see, people now are obsessed with Ghibli immitations that ChatGPT can generate now. There’s also something called Vibe Coding that came up recently that looks a lot like techbro slang from the TV show Silicon Valley and not an actual thing.

Maybe I’m getting old and grumpy (I’m not even in my 30s though), but I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t take this thing of AI being everywhere. And it seems like people have lost their critical sense over it. Many are willingly embracing it like a new hype, others were reluctant but at the end they need it to pay their bills – that is super understandable. But I’m a techie. I know my craft, I know I’m not as fast as a machine. But I still like to understand what I’m doing. I still like to focus and sit through a coding session. I still like to Google error messages and RTFM.

Not just that, but I like the art I enjoy being made by real artists. As much as I like going to a fast-food restaurant once in a while, I like food made by renowned chefs. I like it when people enjoy their crafts.

I see many people being annoyed when I tell them they shouldn’t be using the Ghibli filter, or that they should at least pay for real artists to do some anime-style commission for them. They tell me I’m a party-pooper.

You know what’s definitely annoying? Seeing that people would rather do souless AI art over real craft. That people prefer to waste a bunch of resources and pay a good amount of dollars to big tech to do these things over buying pen and paper and learning how to draw.

What’s really annoying is how people in the tech industry seem to be so indifferent over this. “Oh, it’s easier for studios to use AI? That’s a bummer. Anyways, did you see the new Ghibli filter?”.

We are priviledged enough to be against this. To protect people who aren’t. Back when I was 17, before joining that company, I had to choose between animation or tech, so I chose tech. Although all of the industries are faded to be affected by AI, even the tech industry, we should try to protect the people who aren’t priviledged enough.

I don’t want to ever willingfully use AI. That’s against all of my beliefs. If at some point you see me using AI, that’s definitely because I had to for some reason or another. But I stand in solidarity with all of the workforce that has been affected by this new technology.