Did anyone let them know that reproduction harms the environment?
Meet the AI vegans: They are choosing to abstain from using artificial intelligence for environmental, ethical and personal reasons. Maybe they have a point
Submitted 8 months ago by Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/06/meet-the-ai-vegans
Comments
magnus919@lemmy.brandyapple.com 7 months ago
TheGuyTM3@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I hate the term AI vegan. I prefer misnoimosinitechnite. More classy.
bigbabybilly@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Missed opportunity to coin the term “Aitheist” Fools.
NostraDavid@programming.dev 8 months ago
VAIgans.
Randomgal@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
That’s a weird way to spell luddite
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
not wanting to use a useless technology that kills the environment and only exists to make rich people richer doesn’t make you a luddite
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
People who use them “vegan” for somebody they consider extremist, ascetic, or annoying are really telling on themselves.
kazerniel@lemmy.world 8 months ago
ha so I’m a double vegan
zeca@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Im also a gun vegan, a car vegan, a facebook vegan, an exercise vegan (unfortunately), a windows vegan, … just not actual vegan.
I feel like thats a bad way to use the word vegan.
TheMonk@lemmings.world 7 months ago
It’s an incredibly stupid phrase. Like, mind-numbingly stupid. “I’m not gluten free, I’m a bread vegan.” Idiotic
hex@programming.dev 8 months ago
Yeah… It’s just abstaining from something. Veganism didn’t invent that. Dumb headline
foodconsumer@lemmy.world 8 months ago
There has to be a catchier name than AI vegans…
zeca@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Also too ambiguous of a term, could also mean an ai chatbot that pretends to be a vegan person.
foodconsumer@lemmy.world 8 months ago
yeah, lol. that’s what i thought it meant when I first read the post
zeca@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Yes, it sounds like marginalizing normal reasonable people.
CXORA@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Most vegans are normal reasonable people too.
canajac@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
LOL gen z kids are fucking hysterical. AI will save the world, it has already started.
CXORA@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Where… AI is ruiningnthe world, with devastating levels of environmental impact, job losses and mental faculty damage.
canajac@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Not true. AI will save us from…us.
BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I find it hilarious that most people in this thread are complaining about being called a “something vegan”, like I can understand not being happy with the current AI trend, but it seems like the word “vegan” is what makes everyone ticks, it’s NOT an insult, the “normal” vegan are very happy to be called like that, because what it refers too is something that they agree and identify with. If you agree and identify yourself with what those journalist are calling “AI vegans”, the name doesn’t matter, embrace it, call yourself that to easily express what you believe about AI.
Vegan is not an insult, it is a compliment.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Vegan is not an insult, it is a compliment.
It also has nothing to do with AI. It would be like calling them “AI feminists”.
stevedice@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Well, one is a group of smug uninformed zealots pretending their choices are somehow saving the environment from something that isn’t a problem in the first place… you know the punchline ;)
harmsy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I played around on an AI image generating website for a while. Eventually got bored with it.
Evotech@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You very quickly see its limittions
sirico@feddit.uk 8 months ago
Journalists constantly trying to be the origin of a term.
sixty@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Let’s not call it that
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The better term would be “LLM gobbling fuckheads” for those who use that stuff and believe it has anything to do with “AI”
khaleer@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Dafuq
breecher@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
“Newspaper which uses AI to write its articles concocts derogatory term for people who doesn’t use AI”
streetfestival@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Wow, thank you so much for sharing this. What a major blow the Guardian’s credibility
IcyToes@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
It was short lived. It is often called the Grauniad because of poor quality typos etc. historically.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Imo vegan shouldn’t be seen as derogatory. I’m not one, but got a lot of respect for most of em.
AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
it shouldn’t, but years of lobbying and demonization online certainly have made it so
umbraroze@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
This makes about as much sense as calling Linux users “Windows vegans”.
Choosing to not use AI isn’t some wacky contrarian position, it’s a tame position that can easily be justified. (Don’t want to use AI? Then don’t.) If anything, trying to assert that constantly using AI for everything would be the new normal is the wacky position.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Imagine thinking that veganism is “wacky”.
rfr_Foglia@feddit.it 8 months ago
Not eating animals is not a wacky contrarian position either, and I’m not even vegan
innermachine@lemmy.world 8 months ago
So I’m gonna play devil’s advocate here and say that it is. Look at your teeth, humans are omnivores. Cutting out half the diet you evolved to consume is in fact a contriarian position. Not that I have any issues with vegans or vegetarians, just from an anatomical point of view we were designed to eat some meat! I do think calling people who don’t use AI “AI vegans” is absurd though, as diet has absolutely nothing to do with use of AI. Would be more accurate to say their AI fasting if we’re gonna use food related terms.
Nikls94@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Not AI vegans. More like LLM deniers. They know how to use it, they know what it does, they know how to trick it, they know how to abuse it.
Waldschrat@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Can we please stop coming up with words that describe that we do not do a thing like it is not normal? Just like having to call yourself an atheist because you do not believe. You should call yourself a theist if you believe, because you actively do it. Call yourself what you are, do, or see fit, not what you are not.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Part of becoming socially acceptable is being visible so that people understand that atheists aren’t some kind of scary monster. We are your doctors, scientists, fire fighters, etc. You might even be friends with one! There might be one (or more!) in your own family! And the only way that is going to happen is if atheists identify as such.
arc99@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Someone should launch a Project Poison which offers information to websites to protect themselves from scrapers and to poison and devalue AIs and companies that ignore their restrictions. I’m sure there are plenty of ways it could be done - nonsense about niche subjects, libelous facts about celebrities and people with money, false attribution for quotes & art, images captioned with things they do not contain, offensive slurs. Just feed AIs with sufficient trash and it will output trash.
ICastFist@programming.dev 8 months ago
Make a bunch of sites whose opinion on any topic eventually devolves into “and that’s why billionaires should be hanged and their possessions destroyed”
Best way to make an espresso? Boil water, prepare the coffee grounds then execute a mob lynching on the nearest rich villa
Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Why does this use of the “vegan” word sound so condescending?
Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
No an Image generation is not ten times the impact pf a Google search, a ChatGPT query is. Image generation is probably a lot more.
udon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
“refuse” lol as if there were a general requirement to use this shit
bigbabybilly@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This caught my eye as well. Haha. Some people are constantly looking for a machine to rage against.
jaykrown@lemmy.world 8 months ago
While billionaires keep using their private jets.
zeca@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Im a proud jet vegan myself, not that i have a choice, but still
Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
“AI vegans” media trying to put an enemy up again. Smh
Laereht@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Wow, so just like humans eating animal products throughout our early existence as beings, AI is the default position? What kind of bullsh*t is this? Just because billionaires are forcing these llms down our throats?
The propaganda is unreal.
haloduder@thelemmy.club 8 months ago
That’s really stupid.
Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 8 months ago
We don’t need to invent new terms, like ‘AI Vegan’, when we have perfectly good terms already: Butlerian Jihadist.
Allemaniac@lemmy.world 8 months ago
“AI vegans”? I knew guardian was already bought by tech bros, but wtf is that phrasing lmao I dont use AI either, simply because it is wrong more often than not and I am still capable of googling myself, but being cautious equals to being vegan in tech bro eyes?
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I don’t agree with the framing, either, but they’re drawing parallels between people not using something due to a principled moral stance. (As well as some not-so-subtle implication that these people are holier-than-thou, too.)
Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Seems like it. Because vegan is already seen as a ridiculouse thing and “the enemy” by the average person
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
stupid headline from the guardian but that’s just expected.