How to Say “No” to Our A.I. Overlords

By Bbenzon @bbenzon

The NYTimes has a useful article about how to avoid the AI that Google, Microsoft and Meta are foisting on us:

Big tech brands like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Meta have all unleashed tech that they describe as artificial intelligence. Soon, the companies say, we’ll all be using A.I. to write emails, generate images and summarize articles.

But who asked for any of this in the first place?

Judging from the feedback I get from readers of this column, lots of people outside the tech industry remain uninterested in A.I. — and are increasingly frustrated with how difficult it has become to ignore. The companies rely on user activity to train and improve their A.I. systems, so they are testing this tech inside products we use every day.

I'm particularly worried about having these things in word-processing and email programs. I think it's particularly important that AI-generated text be clearly marked as such. This is going to make that impossible.