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Title: 'Meet The People Who Dare to Say No to AI'

Link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/25/0324244/m...

Thursday the Washington Post profiled "the people who dare to say no to AI,"
including a 16-year-old high school student in Virginia says "she doesn't
want to off-load her thinking to a machine and worries about the bias and
inaccuracies AI tools can produce..." "As the tech industry and corporate
America go all in on artificial intelligence, some people are holding back."
Some tech workers told The Washington Post they try to use AI chatbots as
little as possible during the workday, citing concerns about data privacy,
accuracy and keeping their skills sharp. Other people are staging smaller
acts of resistance, by opting out of automated transcription tools at medical
appointments, turning off Google's chatbot-style search results or disabling
AI features on their iPhones. For some creatives and small businesses,
shunning AI has become a business strategy. Graphic designers are placing
"not by AI" badges on their works to show they're human-made, while some
small businesses have pledged not to use AI chatbots or image generators...
Those trying to avoid AI share a suspicion of the technology with a wide
swath of Americans. According to a June survey by the Pew Research Center,
50% of U.S. adults are more concerned than excited about the increased use of
AI in everyday life, up from 37% in 2021. The Post includes several examples,
including a 36-year-old software engineer in Chicago who uses DuckDuckGo
partly because he can turn off its AI features more easily than Google - and
disables AI on every app he uses. He was one of several tech workers who
spoke anonymously partly out of fear that criticisms could hurt them at work.
"It's become more stigmatized to say you don't use AI whatsoever in the
workplace. You're outing yourself as potentially a Luddite." But he says
GitHub Copilot reviews all changes made to his employer's code - and recently
produced one review that was completely wrong, requiring him to correct and
document all its errors. "That actually created work for me and my co-
workers. I'm no longer convinced it's saving us any time or making our code
any better." And he also has to correct errors made by junior engineers
who've been encouraged to use AI coding tools. "Workers in several industries
told The Post they were concerned that junior employees who leaned heavily on
AI wouldn't master the skills required to do their jobs and become a more
senior employee capable of training others."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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