I Do Not Consent

Meta (formally known as Facebook) has implemented its generative AI chat & art bot into its social media services with no option to opt out of using it, its use of our data, and how we engage with the AI. As a multimedia artist, this disturbs me greatly, and is the reason I will abandon social media platforms.

When Twitter was lurching toward Musk’s end goal, at first there was a promise that no one would be allowed to scrape Twitter with LLM (large language model) AIs to train the output. Then Musk said their own AI would do that instead. I quit posting. When Twitter died and the verification checks and content moderation all went out the window, I deleted my account, wiping everything from the face of X (formerly Twitter).

I am not naïve. I know that merely existing on the internet is to give up my rights to intellectual property. It’s in every EULA (the terms of service no one reads), anything you post can be used for promotional purposes by the site you are posting to.

Not that I’m demanding private accounts. Those exist in some fashion. I’m an artist. Everything I have ever written, crafted, photographed, and then posted, has been to promote my work. I know it has also been churned by an AI whether I consented to it or not.

That’s what is creating all the “new” AI content: it steals and regurgitates. There are lawsuits from authors and visual artists who have been stolen from. There are strikes to protect jobs. AI is not ready for primetime because it is a stochastic toy that only repeats what it has already heard. There are good uses for that! Research and search engines—not creation.

You may look back on old posts of mine and see that I have used generative AI art—before I learned more. Because it is fun to type random words and see what comes out. That’s the toy part. But it’s playing with stolen bits and bobs and there’s very little “creativity” on the user’s part. You’re not an artist if you ask for an image; not from another artist, not from generative AI. A commission is not the work of art. Having an imagination is not a skill. Getting what you have in your head out into the real world with your hands, your voice, your body—that is a skill. That is being an artist. Then when my haunted house novel was rereleased, it had AI art on the cover. I questioned it, expressed concerns, called out my displeasure, and—ultimately—have been told no one cares.

I do.

A lot of people, artists and people intimately familiar with art (all of it), do not want AI “enhancing” anything by the human mind.

Frank Herbert’s Dune has a religion based on strictly forbidding the creation of machines in the likeness of the human mind. Yet, I want C3PO and R2D2, I want Bender to be my robot best friend. But those are fictional characters. In their universes, they are artificial intelligences with independent thought, capable of creating original concepts. We’re not there yet. This is an internet-wide Speak & Spell and it’s using our turns of phrase and writing styles—poorly. It’s just as unsettling and “useful” as an automaton from the late 19th century. It’s a steppingstone in technology, but it cannot do the work of a human.

So, when this used coloring book gets maliciously implemented and I have no choice or ability to turn it off, to opt out, to resist preemptively obeying, then I will gather up what little I can and move on.

Again, not naïve. I would not be surprised if Microsoft’s Copilot is spying on my writing style right now (I’m writing this in Word). I will be posting this with WordPress’s app, Jetpack, which has AI implements that I can opt out of (I have). Google has announced AI will be part of Gmail. It’ll be coming to my iPhone. It’ll be inescapable.

And what’s funny? Proponents of generative AI are spending billions they could pay to people. AI is consuming more than its fair share of water for cooling the computers. This is a bubble that will burst.

But as long as I can say no, I will continue to say no to generative AI. This is my defiance, what little stand I can make, to resist The Matrix, rather than lie down in a pod.

At the end of May, I will be deleting my information from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. I will no longer be accessible on Messenger. In the meantime, I will gladly entertain appropriate contact methods with friends and family through Messenger or Instagram direct messages.

I’m sticking around to give people time to see this, and yes, I have a release in May! The 12th, this year’s Mother’s Day (US) and my mother’s birthday. 41: An Autobiography (Anuci Press) is a look at life in middle America at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. It’s my journey toward becoming an artist and horror author. It’s also the struggle of a life both with and without a mother as we dealt with mutually exclusive demons.

I will also be part of a holiday themed anthology that will be coming soon; more news on that as it becomes available. Speaking of anthologies, Standing 8 Count is producing a new collection of my short stories; again, details as they become available.

I’m going to focus on creating a more “professional” website, dedicated to both Standing 8 Count Publications and my work and interests. Hopefully, with a little more control over my personal output on the internet. An AI will probably crawl all over it, anyway.

Leaving the Meta conglomerate of socials will not hurt my feelings. Instagram (formerly independent) is what I like to share photos on, but I don’t want any of those to train Meta’s AI—or my book covers, or my pets, or my face. Frankly it’ll be better for my mental health (let’s completely gloss over I am very tired from the world events we’re currently living through) and writing. My website and personal blog—which you can get email alerts for—will be where my online presence mostly resides. There will always be ways to contact me and see news. I’m leaving these social medias because I refuse to willingly give away my art, my style, and my identity. I prefer to have it stolen under physical duress like the good old days, rather than being demanded to give it away for free as if it’s doing me a favor. I have had enough of “exposure.”