Ironic Use of AI Just Means You're Not Funny

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We’ve all seen it at this point: Chronic shitposters (largely coming from Bluesky) using AI generated imagery to poke fun at the incoming administration, or generative slop users themselves. And, every single time, I imagine these people think they’re doing something productive, or revolutionary, or funny. But here’s the news flash: You’re not. If you wouldn’t use blockchain tech, or buy NFTs in 2022, then you shouldn’t be generating sludge as a joke, either.

Situations like this remind of me old Mastodon instances in the pre-2020 era of the fediverse, that were erected solely for “shitposting.” They start out funny, or mildly annoying (because, let’s face it, if the only thing you ever post is incoherent jokes, you become tiring after about a day), and usually mostly politically left-leaning. Then, the jokes get worse, and worse. And suddenly, the instance is being flooded with neo nazis and predators, because you decided that ironic fascist jokes weren’t over-the-line. And now you’re just no different than them.

I can just vaguely recall Mastodon instances that were shutdown within months of opening, such as bofa.lol, kazink, and so on. And shitposters.club, a currently active server that is instance-blocked by most instances across the fediverse. All guilty of exactly the same things.

Why do I bring up this comparison?

Partially, because I have a personal grudge against people whose entire personality is shitty jokes (see: the monumentally huge amount of harassment I’ve received on Bluesky for practically no reason at all, from people who have bad taste in humor and politics). But also, because this is an extremely predictable pipeline that always leads to opening the door for undesirables (fascists, crypto-brained losers, sludge-enjoyers).

This isn’t even the only reason you shouldn’t do this, though! Making yourself indistinguishable from people who have no qualms with the destruction of human creativity, and art is, bad enough, but then you also have to take into account the harm you’re causing the actual literal planet every single time you make a prompt.

Quote from watertech.com:

Artificial intelligence (AI) quickly went from a neat parlor trick to a business imperative. IBM reports that 82% of large enterprises have either deployed AI or are experimenting with doing so. Unlike other technology innovations like smartphones or WiFi networks, AI isn’t a one-time integration. The technology is constantly evolving with new models and capabilities.

Each time these AI tools are prompted, there’s a cost that few consider. Researchers believe that each string of prompts uses roughly 16 ounces of water at data centers that house these AI systems. Extrapolate AI use globally, and it’s clear how water systems are taxed. Microsoft’s latest environmental report shows its water consumption jumped 34% from 2021 to 2022, reaching nearly 1.7 billion gallons. Google reports its water consumption went up nearly 22% over the same period to a staggering 5.56 billion gallons, about 800 times as big as The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

And that doesn’t even mention the carbon dioxide generated from the fossil-fuel powered electricity that we use, that has already been melting the ice caps for about fifty to sixty years, or more.

Some of these people might argue that you do the same amount of harm by charging your smartphone, or running a microwave. But, if that’s true (and those were just crude examples), why in the world would you feel it necessary to double the harm you’re doing by generating some uncanny-valley sludge in response to racist propaganda?

OK, it's AI...but much truer than Haitians eating your dogs and cats!

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— eugene (@eugene290390.bsky.social) January 5, 2025 at 9:22 PM

Oh, I see, it’s funny, because Donald Trump is just a drooling baby and Elon Musk is the actual sitting president. Ah.

And you couldn’t have dictated your little joke with words, and a little bit of stock footage? Or, remembered that Joe Biden is still currently in the White House (as of posting this)?

To give some closing perspective, here are some websites and communities that have been willingly (by their creators) destroyed by generative AI.

• DeviantArt: Once a place for artists to share their work, and even sell it, now overrun by inauthentic slop.

• Etsy: Once a place for creatives to make money off of the things they make, and do, now a place where you can use algorithmically stolen work, that can’t legally even be copyrighted to make money off the backs of those same exact people.

• NaNoWriMo: Once a fun community event about writing for yourself a 50,000 word novel in the month of November, now fully endorses plagiarism bots. And this is a special case, because they originally called those who are against AI ableist, for not wanting plagiarism and creative theft in writing spaces. And then they doubled back and deleted that statement, and edited it to talk down to those critical of AI as if they’re our angry parents.

And that’s just to name a few. There are many more spaces and communities that either have already been destroyed by the continuing enshitification of anything good that’s left in the world, by big tech companies, or those that are currently being targeted. This is why so many people have been fleeing corporate social media. And the last thing you should do, is bring it with you, in the form of bad jokes and a vitriolic personality, just to be ironic on Bluesky, or even Mastodon.

Don’t be that douche.