AI Wants Me, but I Don’t Want AI

The above was written by AI. I asked it to write a blog post about AI and was surprised that, first of all, it did, and secondly, that it admitted it’s planning to take over the world.

Self-driving cars, analytics, healthcare, finance, and finally, the arts.

It’s that last one I really have a problem with. You see, the way AI learns is by copying others, by stealing the words of every writer and the artwork of every artist, living or dead, and imitating them for a fraction of the price.

Now, this isn’t going to affect me because no self-respecting auto-bot is going to want to copy me, and if it did, it’s not like whatever dreck it produced based on my stuff could undersell me because I’m not making any money in the first place.

But it’s the principle of the thing.

I am told we artsy types are going to be given the ability to opt out, but how, when, and if it will actually do any good is still not clear. Given the opportunity, however, I will take it, because up to now, I have not been consulted at all.

Microsoft has seen fit to infect all of its products with an AI bot by the name of Co-Pilot. I don’t want it, I wasn’t asked, they foist it upon me, and it seems I don’t have the option of not having it.

Two posts ago I made the solemn promise to not use AI and, while I intend to keep that promise, they are not making it easy. (I just noticed, while writing this post, that WordPress also has an AI button that I never asked for.)

The first thing I noticed was this:

I was presented with this every time I opened a Word document. I got a similar greeting in Excel, as well. It took some digging, but I finally found a way to get rid of it.

Then, however, I opened Outlook and found this:

After searching high and low, I found you are not able to remove, or even mute, this feature. On a laptop screen it is annoying, on a mobile phone, it takes up valuable real estate. The MS forums that I visited were full of angry comments about this.

Instead of fixing it, however, they doubled down:

Now there is even more chaff on the screen, and when you try to write an email, you get this:

And even though I do not want to draft with Co-Pilot, I cannot get away from it.

All this made me so angry that I proposed to rid myself of all things Microsoft, a futile gesture that made me even more depressed because it only reminded me that I sold my soul to Microsoft long ago and now there is no getting out. And even if I could, AI would still find me. There is, apparently, no escape.

And so, I will continue to prostrate myself to Microsoft while I steadfastly refuse to allow AI to insinuate itself into my life. In closing, I would like … (Co-Pilot takes over)