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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
rozodru@lemmy.world 8 months ago
lightsblinken@lemmy.world 8 months ago
so… you’re refusing AI, but you are using AI? isnt the point of the story that people are not using because ethics? its not a discussion on how good they are, which is somewhat irrelevant.
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I don’t use it because I have no trust in it.
Honytawk@feddit.nl 8 months ago
Don’t use it for things you need trust in then.
Inspiration for creative writing prompts for example. Things that make you double check every word that has been generated or where it doesn’t matter they hallucinate.
Jhex@lemmy.world 8 months ago
also because it’s shit, if my memory serves me, I have successfully used AI for a productive task 1 time out of 7 attempts so far… it saved me 5 minutes
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That is part of the trust thing. I spent more time fixing the word salad it spat out than it would have taken to write the document.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Sounds like you are not eating enough small rocks a day. You should eat 1 small rock a day.
kinther@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Wtf this is the weirdest thing to read while taking a shit in the morning
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Calling them after a maligned (if harmless) group seems like a choice to paint refusing to use AI as being annoying, preachy and scorn-worthy.
They seem very determined to pressure people into using AI regardless of it’s practicality, environmental impact, or anything. Fuck this shit.
TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
yeah, this is 1000% deliberate manufacturing consent
mostlikelyaperson@lemmy.world 8 months ago
There’s been recent pushes in that regard, investment in AI shit has been enormous but the financial payoff for anyone besides hardware manufacturers remains nonexistent. So investors and corporations have recently redoubled their efforts into trying to get everyone to use it in the hopes that this somehow will make them profitable.
carl_dungeon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This is someone more obnoxious than ai tech bros
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I think this IS an AI tech bro. Or at least an AI tech bro dick-rider.
CH3DD4R_G0BL1N@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I’ll just stick with calling myself “old man yelling at clouds” for the double meaning and so I’m not a vegan of any kind, thanks.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Aigen or Aibstenant something for a term. Vegan is not right.
ICastFist@programming.dev 8 months ago
I’d rather be called a Luddite than ai vegan
lightsblinken@lemmy.world 8 months ago
luddaite?
crash_thepose@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
This deserves more votes
thedruid@lemmy.world 8 months ago
What bullshif us this?
A. I vegan is a nonesence title.
How about " people who don’t want the world to end even faster tell corps to fuck off"
dynamoMaus@feddit.org 8 months ago
You kind of summarized bring vegan
Taleya@aussie.zone 8 months ago
It’s a lead. Because they’ve already made vegans mockworthy
devfuuu@lemmy.world [bot] 8 months ago
So I’m not the only one who refuses ro touch it?
Around me and everywhere it’s getting insane that if feels like there’s literally no one who hasn’t used it or use regularly for all kinds of shit.
Auli@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Search sucks and the AI is faster for tech questions. Try searching a Linux cli question or obscure error. Lots of stuff from over a decade ago that are no longer relevant. And you have to wade through so much to find the right one. Or type in AI wait a minute and get the answer.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Can you give an example?
davidagain@lemmy.world 8 months ago
And you have to wade through so much to find the right one. Or type in AI wait a minute and get the answer.
Uhhh, type in AI, wait a minute and get an answer. How are you checking it?
rm - f /isn’t the only filesystem footgun.I’m finding AI to be right roughly only 60% of the time, and it’s as bad and hallucinatory about shell scripts as it is about everything else.
It will happily admit its mistakes and give you another answer when you call it out, but it’s no more likely to be right that time.
tino@lemmy.world 8 months ago
TIL I’m a lot of thing vegan… also, not a vegan.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
AI is the new crypto. It will appear to die off but the aspects that work will be integrated into everything.
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Wishful thinking. Crypto never got anywhere anyway. I am already seeing AI slop on billboards and all.
audaxdreik@pawb.social 8 months ago
What aspects of crypto have been integrated into everything?
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
techbros graced everyone else with disruptive, innovative methods of money laundering
vane@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think it’s scam. Before crypto scam was in couple of places but now it’s everywhere.
ragas@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
The US government.
MoonRaven@feddit.nl 8 months ago
I can only imagine someone came up with AI vegan after they decided to eat steak that evening while thinking they’re the ones who are pressed by vegans…
Crampon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I selective use AI for low risk applications.
I can use it to reskin a picture to a water painting or whatever for the purpose of using it as an icon in a smart home app or similar.
i also use it to clean audio for memes with friends.
At the moment its not reliable to solve actual problems. I simply don’t use to for those purposes because it sucks.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 8 months ago
I think some AI use is clearly worth the costs (like helping with scientific research or accessibility), some clearly isn’t (like generating spam), and much falls in a gray area where reasonable people can disagree. So do I think it’s ethical to use me? In many cases, yes - but I understand why thoughtful people might conclude otherwise, and I don’t think they’re wrong to avoid AI if they’ve weighed the considerations and found the costs too high.
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I applaud folks like this - they make a choice and stick with it. No “I’ll never use AI to generate art but I vibe code to save time” hypocrisy. No “I use it to help me with maths, but I’d never use it to steal artistic work”.
Just straight up “it is an environmental hazard, it is unethical, not engaging”. Should be called “AI Ethicists” rather than “AI Vegans”.
Womble@piefed.world 8 months ago
Yeah, I too hate those hypcrites who complain about the massive environmental impact of AI, then drive a 10 mile round trip to buy a burger made from a cow raised on soy.
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Would you happen to be a vegan who is also anti-car by any chance?
If so, I can recommend fuckcars on ml as they share your viewpoint.
Flagstaff@programming.dev 8 months ago
Starting it with “AI” is already misleading. Whatever the noun is should be preceded by “Anti-AI.”
monogram@feddit.nl 8 months ago
I’ve personally sworn off writing code with any if statements or static values, my webpages hallucinate differently on each refresh 💟
My desktop is a bit allergic to any art made my humans
— A.I. Vegan
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I dunno, the use of AI Ethicist fits as they’re not against the concept of generative AI as a whole, they’re against unethical generative AI (in terms of stolen training data and environmental harm).
If the world transitioned to a post-IP (intellectual property) society (as we need to), with AI eating less power, then AI Ethicists are unlikely to object.
sifr@retrolemmy.com 8 months ago
On my list of “dont’s”, inspired by Luke Smith, I do not use AI.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This is such a stupid name for this.
Dvixen@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I prefer Neo-Liddite. There’s a few aspects of modern tech I eschew - AI/LLM bring one of them.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Why neo?
Dvixen@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Why not?
(It’s not really something I’ve ever thought about since I started using the term. It kinda just is.)
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
today I was trying to find how to manipulate a trunk on an aruba switch and JFK the internet search results were fucking shit on a platter! I tried to reword it in ways that might give me a better result but it never happened. None of the commands the AI suggested would have worked.
I FUCKING HATE AI results in the web searching tools
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
HEre’s a tip, paste the chapter index from the manual in it, ask "which chapter are relevant to " $question Then paste the chapter it asks, then formulate your question The AI search result though, useless because they’re contextless, it’s like a car without a steering wheel.
CarrmynCarnage@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
If anyone says the words “AI Vegan” to my face, I’m throwing shit.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Make sure to wash your hands after.
ICastFist@programming.dev 8 months ago
Or use a sling for higher velocity
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Shitty click baity title
jerkface@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
It’s not cool to use “vegan” like this.
REDACTED@infosec.pub 8 months ago
Got a good chuckle out of me tho
Zorque@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s like vegangate or something.
medem@lemmy.wtf 8 months ago
‘AI vegan’…
Where I come from, saying something that stupid will get you killed.
Gsus4@mander.xyz 8 months ago
I’m an LLM freegan, I guess. But I’m cutting back too, the usefulness peaked.
rhythmisaprancer@piefed.social 8 months ago
freegan
If they had come up with something original like that, it would have been better. But creating constructive neologisms takes work, I guess.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Try if one of the following strikes your fancy
AIniks
NoBots
Cogclean
Algorejects
Synthephobes
auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Ai vegans are people who only use ai generated porn.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
I’ve never used AI, even when wanting to give it a try. There was either a queue or a fee, or must click-wrap agree to terms and conditions for free two months and I wasn’t going to do those.
I never did an NFT either.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Eh, you can download and run them locally now, and they don’t even phone home.
MyOpinion@lemmy.today 8 months ago
I try not to use AI at all. I am not missing out on anything.
npdean@lemmy.today 8 months ago
I hate this attitude from people who don’t even try things before saying they are not missing out. Try AI! You have to experience the head bashing, head scratching time sink, after which you do a manual search anyways. It is a marvellous wonder how bad modern “cutting edge” tech can be.
davidagain@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They may have come to this decision through experience.
Having used it a bit, I find it’s like someone a bit stupid with a lot of time on their hands, but no knowledge, saying “I’ll learn everything you need to know from Google and write you an answer”, just speeded up a lot. And just as frustrating.
GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I also try, but it is invoked on my behalf. For instance, at work if I make a pull request now multiple AI bots are summoned to give an analysis of my code changes. It’s extremely verbose and annoying, and I think basically nobody reads it because all it does is just spam the comments section with way too much text.
I vehemently hate OpenAI, ChatGPT, et al. At least it’s funny when it summarizes my changes as significant improvements that improve code maintainability. I guess getting glazed by the bot in a way my manager can see is helpful to my career? Though honestly he probably also doesn’t read that shit. So glad all this energy is wasted for nothing.
MyOpinion@lemmy.today 8 months ago
It is sickening how much slop is created that will never even be looked at.
atticus88th@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Just wait until you have an employer tell you that you need to write up a summary of how you used AI in your every day activities to save 25% of your day to work on other activities.
You’ll use AI to write the summary and then soon discover that your employer is a tool and is paying more than double your salary to keep that AI around to do literally nothinf 98% of the time it exists.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Can you pick them out if crowd by their furled brows?
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Just hold up a picture, they’ll show up to tell you why they think it’s generated
Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I can not wait, until the time of the perpetually seeking attention moron ends. Its always something with these fucking people. If you dont wanna use AI, just dont use it. Theres no fucking gun to your head. And we dont need to know youre not using, much less, find out youve got a dumb fucking name for yourselves.
deathbird@mander.xyz 8 months ago
“Theres no fucking gun to your head.” Bosses: 🦜🤖 🟰💹, 👨💼🔫🤓
CarrmynCarnage@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Not just bosses. Tech companies have leveraged a good portion of the world’s economy on AI, and are shoveling money directly into the ovens to shove it down our throats.
No one asked for any of this. Not a goddamn soul asked for AI order takers at McDonald’s. Because it’s not about choice. The choice to abstain is going to get more and more painful to make as time goes on. By design.
Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
If it gets you talking about it, even in the context of telling them to shut the fuck up, it’s working :)
ICastFist@programming.dev 8 months ago
No, it isn’t, it’s fucking stupid. The author was kind enough to link the source of that shitty idea, and the AI/vegan parallels are, per said article: ethical, environmental and wellness concerns.
Gee wiz, I sure never saw people with those 3 concerns in regards to anything other than veganism!!!
/s
astutemural@midwest.social 8 months ago
ITT: people really upset at being called ‘vegan’ for some reason.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
It’s pretty clear that the author doesn’t intend it as a compliment.