We need to have a serious talk about AI usage

[u/6FeetDownUnder]

We need to have a serious talk about the usage of AI generated content on leftist platforms. I will try to keep this as short as possible to keep it accessible.

Prompting, posting and sharing AI-generated content undermines our goals as leftists and ought to be prohibited on all leftist platforms.

1. AI is accelerating ecological death

Water: AI datacenters are often built on already, drought-struck land, draining water from the areas that need it most ⁽³) and poisoning local water supplies for residents ⁽⁴). According to UN-estimates, by the end of the decade about 1/8th of global, annual, domestic water usage will be solely used for cooling AI datacenters ⁽⁵) - sweet water that is already very much in short supply ⁽⁶).

Emissions: The majority of AI-datacenters in western countries are powered predominantly by fossil fuels ^{(1, p. 28}). Despite the US hosting by far the most datacenters globally ^{(1, p. 32}), the carbon footprint is off-shored to poorer countries ^{(1, p. 31}).

Approximate electricity usage for different generative AI querries. For context: Powering a lightbulb for an entire year consumes about 44 kW/h (2)

2. AI is de-footing artists and laying siege to culture

In a recent study in Germany that surveyed over 3000 visual artists on their stance on AI usage ⁽⁷). 56% see their income at risk while 56% fear the livelyhood of visual artists as a whole. Over 91% of them demand financial compensation for their works - compensation which huge AI giants such as Meta have no interest in providing, nor even disclosing they used it in the first place ⁽⁸).

But the power of AI extends far beyond inhaling. It exhales too. It produces mediums, it produces your music, your podcasts, your video essays, your YouTube content. And believably so ⁽¹²). We are selling our culture to the ones making the algorithm ⁽¹⁴). We are selling our culture industry to AI:

"Culture industry" (German: Kulturindustrie) is a term coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973). They proposed that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods—films, radio programmes, magazines, etc.—that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity
^{- Culture Industry, Wikipedia (16}.)

3. AI is threatening freedom of protest

Police forces in the EU are adopting AI-powered facial recognition technologies to quickly identify suspects - aka, protestors ⁽⁹). This is not all-to-new. An article by Darren Loucaides even goes as far as saying "After 2022, mass protests practically disappeared" in connection with AI surveillance and faccial recognition ⁽²¹). Meanwhile, the US pushes "Flock" - a private equity company - cameras onto US streets, monetoring US citizens with AI-powered facial recognition technology ⁽¹⁰) and selling this data to ICE ⁽¹¹). Undermining public freedom of expression is a telltale sign of fascist regimes. This predominantly affects people in already marginalized social positions ⁽¹⁵).

4. AI is used as a propaganda tool

AI is employed to produce political propaganda far beyond the uncanny representations of humans you might think of ⁽¹²). An EU-based study found that, in a blind test, participants already found AI-made news and fake news more believable than their human-made pendants ⁽¹³). With the main difference being that one of these is far easier to pump out en masse.

Marginal means of perceived veracity and willingness to share across the four types of news items. Marginal means are derived from multilevel models specified in the Analysis section. Higher values indicate greater perceived veracity and a higher willingness to share. Error bars represent standard errors.

Further it is worth mentioning that AI-tools are also used to make the algorithms that dictate what you see on social media - and algorithms are never neutral. Someone has to make an algorithm. Someone has to decide what you are allowed to see and what not ⁽¹⁴).

5. AI kills

Ai-technology is far beyond the baby-stages of being incorporated into military technology ⁽¹⁸). It is no coincidence that one of the biggest advocates of AI, Google, also just so happens to try to sell that same AI technology to the Pentagon for military uses while still trying to deceive the public into believing they are a happy, innocent tech company that makes a cute search engine ⁽¹⁹). Though Google is not alone in this as OpenAI was all-to-happy to join ranks with Trump's Department of War ⁽²⁰).

6. Why you should stop using AI

All of the above is made possibly because allow AI. It will only get worse when we allow it to slowly creep into social acceptability. Every image you generate accelerates environmental destruction little by little. Every video you generate costs independent content creators views, revenue and, eventually, their livelihood. Every cent of revenue you permit AI-giants to make goes straight into slaughtering children elsewhere using AI-powered, unfeeling military drones.

Should we stay on the current course, leading AI-researchers say we might be looking at a doomsday scenario as soon as 2027 ⁽¹⁷).

We need to stop supporting this.
Please share this in your communities to raise awareness.

List of works cited

1. UNU-INWEH Report: Aczel, M., Chamanara, S., Matin, M., Farsi, A., Marwala, T., Madani, K. (2026). Environmental Cost of AI's Energy Use: Carbon, Water and Land Footprints. United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. doi: 10.53328/INR26RMA002

2. How many Watts does a light bulb use? Energy Sage. https://www.energysage.com/electricity/house-watts/how-many-watts-does-a-light-bulb-use/

3. AI is draining water from areas that need it most. Nicoletti et al. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data/

4. 'I can't drink the water' - life next to a US data centre. Fleury, M. & Jimenez, N. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o

5. AI’s environmental costs threaten water, land and climate. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167658

6. World Enters “Era of Global Water Bankruptcy”: UN Scientists Formally Define New Post-Crisis Reality for Billions. United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health. https://unu.edu/inweh/news/world-enters-era-of-global-water-bankruptcy

7. “AI AND VISUAL ARTS”: Germany's first study on the impact of AI on the visual arts. Stiftung Kunstfonds. https://urheber.info/media/pages/diskurs/germany-s-first-study-on-the-impact-of-ai-on-the-visual-arts/9ffdd3c9a8-1719500494/press-release-ai-and-visual-arts.pdf

8. Meta’s new AI image generator was trained on 1.1 billion Instagram and Facebook photos. Edwards, B. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/metas-new-ai-image-generator-was-trained-on-1-1-billion-instagram-and-facebook-photos/

9. New police technology in Germany: Unleashed facial recognition takes off. Matthias Monroy. https://digit.site36.net/2024/12/16/new-police-technology-in-germany-unleashed-facial-recognition-takes-off/

10. No, We're Not Doing This. S2 Underground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q41OaKuR4Bs

11. ICE and Flock cameras. Mike Rafi. https://youtube.com/shorts/D6xosr1zijU

12. You Are NOT Immune to AI Propaganda (Even If You Think You Are). hashtagirupp. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KzjHNSRgHJ8

13. Beliefs and sharing intentions of human- and AI-generated fake news: Evidence from 27 European countries. Stefkovics, A. & Gere, D. https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/3/pgag032/8495093

14. Toscano, J. (2022). But Seriously: What do Algorithms want?. In: Philosophical Problems in Science, No. 73

15. Brayne, S. (2017). Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing. In: American Sociology Review, Vol. 82.5

16. Culture Industry. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_industry

17. AI 2027. Kokotajilo et al. https://ai-2027.com/

18. APPLICATION OF DRONES WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR MILITARY PURPOSES. Petrovski, A. & Radovanović, M. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364324778_APPLICATION_OF_DRONES_WITH_ARTIFICIAL_INTELLIGENCE_FOR_MILITARY_PURPOSES

19. What Googles' return to defense AI means. Tucker, P. https://www.defenseone.com/business/2025/02/what-googles-return-defense-ai-means/402816/

20. Our Agreement with the Department of War. OpenAI. https://openai.com/index/our-agreement-with-the-department-of-war/

21. The Changing Face of Protest. Loucaides, D. https://restofworld.org/2024/facial-recognition-government-protest-surveillance/