This blog post was not brought to you by AI. I’m keeping things real.

Recent findings have found that a large proportion of web content now contains data that is AI generated. Some sources say that this is over 74% which is incredible.

You’ll probably be able to tell that I don’t use AI in my writing. Every so often I will use it to steer me in the direction I need to go in my research and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t using some form or another to even write this. That’s mostly because web search doesn’t exist like it used to. AI is pretty much just forced down everybody’s throats these days. You end up using it in one form or another regardless of what you do.

One of my side jobs is programming. I studied at one of Australia’s top universities in games and multimedia development and programming language proficiency was a core principal of that. I don’t work in that field as much anymore, but I knew years ago that this whole AI thing would be trouble for coders. It’s everywhere now, embedded in the IDEs. When I do code, I use it to be lazy. I’ve “developed” (and I used that loosely) web-based applications where my input has been minimal. It does an okay job. There are huge hiccups and errors at times, but more or less it does an okay job… with a little editing, it just works. Scary shit.

I have to say that I’m thankful that I have another profession where AI cannot take over.

I come from an era where we were just getting the internet at home and back then it was fun because you weren’t relying on AI to do everything for you. You could make efforts to find information and learning from it. Now, it’s more like: “Why would I read this when AI will read AND interpret it for me?” This is going to have some really serious and scary implications in the future, especially healthcare.

I don’t want AI thrown into everything I do on the web but it’s like I don’t have much of a choice these days. I feel like I can’t trust anything anymore. Being online isn’t as fun as it used to be. I feel like such a boomer for saying that (and I’m not, okay?). I miss the good old days when technology was new and home computer availability was becoming a thing. I miss having a reason to think about things and not have AI take care of everything.

It’s nice having web browsers that don’t have the AI thing shoved into it. It’s kind of why I use VIvaldi. I didn’t ask for AI in my web browser and I’m glad it’s not there. If, and that’s a big IF, I want to use AI, I have that option. I just don’t want it shoved down my throat like religion in the USA.

Having said all of this stuff, my posts will always be written by me. There will be spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, and general weirdness. I do use the double dash, so just keep that in mind. I’ve stopped myself a few times on this post!

Please remember: it’s okay to learn things–to do things yourself. AI is not completely evil. It’s just absurdly overused. I’m tired of it. Unfortunately, there’s no escape from it.