I want to be honest about my AI use and what I used it for. As I believe that explaining my opinions is the best way for people to understand. I believe AI is dangerous and very bad for the environment. But saying that, I also believe nothing is completely black and white. AI has some good abilities too.

Example one: I have dyslexia and am not very good at anything math- or coding-related. Instead of spending many agonising hours learning to code in Excel, I used Google and Ecosia AI to help me make an intricate tax form in Excel for my business.

Example two: because of my dyslexia, I make a lot of spelling mistakes, so I use Grammarly, which uses AI, to detect my spelling mistakes and help me fix them.

Example three: I wanted to create an interactive element conversation for month two of my mail club, but the information on which platforms use coding and which don’t was limited. So I used AI to find the information for me, as this saved me a lot of time, which I could instead use to make actual art without the use of AI.

Example four: I live in Finland, and in our country, if you are sick or disabled, you are most likely eligible for Kela support. Kela is a government-run company that gives certain people money in different kinds of situations, most commonly if they are unable to obtain money from somewhere else, like a job. In my situation, I used AI to understand the complicated network of information I need to know to apply to diffenrent supports from Kela. Like how much money I can make before Kela ends most of my support.

Example five: And yes, I must admit that when I started my mail club, I used AI as a support to write some of my texts. After reading about the long-term effects of it on my learning and brain chemistry, I stopped. Because if you use AI to write everything for you, you will not learn this skill yourself. And most likely it isn’t original but stolen from someone else's article or book.

Example six: I often find myself needing help with collecting ideas. I use Ecosia AI sometimes, as well as other research methods to search for finding idea, like searches, Pinterest, Pixabay and Canva. I find that it’s okay to use AI for this, as long as it’s not your only way of finding ideas, and as long as you use the AI answers only as a base to build on with your own ideas. It’s important to take everything you get from AI with a grain of salt. Remember to use your own brain too!

The point I’m trying to make is that using AI for small things that you find difficult and need help with can be beneficial. But in general, I would steer away from using AI. Especially using it to create something you would otherwise create by hand, like painting, drawing, writing, singing, filming, or photographing. Also, if you use AI to do all your research, you won’t learn to solve problems or develop as a writer or artist.

It is also good to keep in mind that nothing AI “creates” is original. People have to feed it information from somewhere, aka other people's art, writings, images, texts, videos or even books. Recently there have been concerning videos online where companies are buying every book ever made, even rare and ancient ones, cutting the backs off, and feeding them to an industrial scanner to teach AI. This is bad for many reasons, as they are destroying sacred knowledge.

In conclusion, AI is very disruptive to the environment, but if used sparingly and in the right contexts, it can be useful and save a lot of time. However, all my art is human-made, because I believe that if you cannot make art without AI, you shouldn’t be an artist. Some pieces are edited with software that may use AI, like Canva's background remover and similar apps, but I don’t use generative AI or anything like that to “enhance” the artwork. There are other ways to be creative, but I’m tired of seeing people waste artists lives away by making or using AI for their business. What I mean to say is you're using AI to generate all your video ideas, you use AI to make your logos, and use AI to make art instead of hiring an artist, you're just lazy. I also don’t listen to or support AI-made music; the odd mistake happens now and then, but I don’t listen to it intentionally.

Now go out there and create something beautiful and human-made!!!