Thoughts on AI in Summer 2026
I believe in assessing and changing my mind. I don’t like rigid thinking. And my thoughts about AI have changed. It’s hard to share with the future just how quickly, and how insidiously, AI has crept into daily life. It went from a novelty to a shortcut to an inescapable reality so fast. And I know, in the future, readers will struggle to imagine the world before AI, like the world before printed books or smartphones or television. My problem is that my attitude has changed the more powerful AI becomes. I don’t make little images anymore. I don’t go on creative wanders. I have it help me repair things around the house. And I use it to talk to myself as I’m ideating and brainstorming for my writing.
Imagining a pirate ghost for my current manuscript that may or may not feature a pirate ghost
I miss the playful days of conceptualizing an idea into images. Showing concepts of disability in images. Making new disablity images. I still want to populate the internet with disability images, to raise up the ideas. Because if AI doesn’t hear from disabled people, how will it learn about disabled people? It will lean into the constant stereotypes that limit our collective understanding of how disabled people live.
I am unable to putter and play because of the awful cost. Even though I know the consumer cost is vastly overshadowed by the corporate demands of spyware and chatbots and “behind the scenes” decision-making for health insurance. I know my drops in the ocean are not the waves, but I don’t even want to contribute drops to the environmental catastrophe these data centers are inflicting on communities. They create a constant hum, devour water, and consume power to the point of schools being asked to turn off lights to save power (source). The problems that this “solution” brings have not been thought through. Or addressed. Or considered.
“The quest for moreness creates epic scarcity. ”
So the cost casts shadows over the potential. I saw possibility. But now it’s all mired in the madness of implementation. Which concerns me because my interactions with ai do not impress me with intelligence. If anything, it baffles me with the way it confuses facts, distorts history, and draws conclusions. As someon that has worked with it, I’ve seen how it forgets instruction. “Stop saying absolutely,” I say. “Absolutely,” it says.
Now, will I refuse to use it forever? No, it’s everywhere. But can I promote my art and creations in good conscience? No.
I don’t like how it looks and behaves anymore. I don’t like how the owners lie and manipulate. I don’t like how the corporations dive into using it as backend shortcuts, firing real people so ai can churn out slop. I don’t want to support any of that. So I’m taking it out of my merch, and won’t use it again until I can feel that the contribution is bigger than the detriment. Right now, the detriment gives me the ick.
Exploring the idea of transformation and butterflies by Lenka Vodicka
Learning is a good thing, and changing my mind is all right too. The world is changing fast. We can’t be expected to keep up. But I do my best with information I have at the time. If anything, AI makes me appreciate the human mind more. We are amazing, every single one of us. No matter how we move through the world. We matter.
I will play and prompt for disabled or challenging the status. I will play occasionally. But I won’t use the images in the merch store. I always strive for ethical responsibility. So hard in this day and age, advocating for representation when exhausted. I try my best :)
*written by a real person
