Sure thing! Here’s a sharp, balanced, and persuasive essay arguing why AI “sucks.”
Of course, I am kidding. I did not write this article with AI, and don’t plan to for any of my work. AI sucks, in my humble opinion, and honestly, it feels a little confusing living during its rise in popularity. Yes, large language models like ChatGPT or Deepseek are groundbreaking, society-shattering tools for performing complex tasks quickly; they are the current pinnacle of technological advancements and are integrated into all corners of our digital lives, blah blah blah. You know the gist of it. Really, I want to discuss the advent of one particular area of AI, with how it’s used in art, especially with the advent of Sora 2.
The newest version of the generative prompt-to-video model was released at the end of September, and its impact was immediately felt. If you open the internet for less than five seconds, you will see AI videos and images popping up left and right. It is insane. One minute, I could be watching something on Instagram that’s a funny, lighthearted, and humorous joke I could send to friends, and then in one swipe, my eyeballs would have to endure whatever fake, absurd garbage is on my screen. For the most part, these AI creations consist of what I just said, the absurd. The late Queen Elizabeth performing a concert stage dive. Various political figures beating up opponents in the wrestling ring. Stephen Hawking is doing everything else, literally everything else. Seriously, can we talk about the sheer amount of AI-generated memes centered around Stephen Hawking? I can get behind the fact that his being in a wheelchair can make for some entertaining skater clips, but enough is enough!
Then, there are the negative implications of these AI videos. While it is fairly easy now to detect how they do not look exactly realistic with unnatural movement, AI can very much reach a point where I genuinely will not be able to tell. Sometimes AI will recreate art in the style of an artist or piece of media so well that I have to double-check for myself by sifting through viewer comments or taking another in-depth look at the thing. Discerning between what’s real and what’s AI, what’s human and what’s not, is something that I am, unfortunately, finding myself involved in gradually over time. There are so many times I see a cool piece of art online and support it through social media, only to find that it’s actually AI-generated, with a very negative response from others to boot. It’s changed how I have to look at images, and not in a good way.
So many negative factors arise when I think about this. The obvious part is how it lacks any actual human creativity, and it’s completely soulless. It does not matter how “technologically advanced” it is able to recreate something from reality. The fact is, art is not art without humanity, and these AI-generated photos and videos are not even real in the first place, so do not bother.
Then there are the really negative factors of it, like just how offensive they can get. I may be able to handle dark humor at times, but that does not mean that I justify it or take it unseriously when it crosses a line. I notice AI crossing that line repeatedly (looking at you, Instagram reels). Targeting different groups of people or offensive topics like that is just not okay. In addition, imagine the possibly hateful or incriminating things it could do. Framing others, bullying those around you, that kind of stuff just destroys trust and facilitates conflict. It is bad, and there is nothing more to say.
As artificial intelligence, specifically in its visual domain, continues to dominate our society at an increasing rate with an ever-increasing impact, I really want to make my voice heard on this, even if it is small. Sure, AI can make a few funny jokes or compensate for “poor artistic ability” (which is not real, by the way), but it looks unrealistic and bad, is capable of visual disinformation, and on top of all that, has the potential to enable only more hatred and toxicity in the world. AI sucks.
