Just Say No to Generative AI
- Barbara G. Tucker
- Jul 10
- 3 min read
I'm reading a lot about this now (I have time in retirement). I want to distinguish between generative AI and AI that might be used for medical purposes, although I am not sure I trust that so much, knowing the flaws of generative AI and not knowing the technical and technological differences.
I am working on at least one podcast about it. A friend is going to help with some positives. I see very few, except for brainstorming and possible time saving (only if you just accept what it puts out without any proofreading, editing, or critical thinking).
A couple of thoughts:
From this morning's Dispatch (the Jonah Goldberg/Steve Hayes project, which has done very well in my opinion.)
As students increasingly outsource writing to artificial intelligence, the consequences may extend well beyond academic integrity. Writing for Engelsberg Ideas, Aaron MacLean argued that AI poses an urgent and profound danger to human reasoning. “An old professor of mine, in my freshman year, once said something wise and important to a seminar I was in when one of my classmates observed that ‘I know what I think, I just can’t get the words down on the page.’ My teacher responded: ‘Well, you don’t actually know what you think, then. The act of writing the thing is the same thing as the thinking of it. If you can’t write it, you haven’t actually thought it,’” he wrote. “Now we have technology that, in essence, is promising to supplant the core and foundational human activity – that of thinking. And if it is a bit sad that human beings are simply less musical than we used to be, this threat is much more serious. Freedom is, in the first and most essential place, intellectual freedom – the ability to reason clearly, to navigate received opinion and accreted prejudice so as to pursue and sometimes even catch knowledge of things that matter. This activity, when directed at the things that matter most, is called philosophy. It’s a kind of hunt, sometimes pursued in cooperation with others, racing in bands across the limitless plain after our quarry – but in the moment of the kill, we all must kill alone, for ourselves. The hunt for wisdom requires, of course, basic reasoning skills and ideally wide exposure to high-quality efforts of others to reason about things that matter. It requires learning.”
I also watched this by John Oliver. I have only watched one or two of his things. He is vulgar and blasphemous, so warning, but this is excellent on the subject, and quite funny.
And finally, this funny but spot on video about the stylistic tells of AI, some of which I had already noticed. The biggest for a teacher: no sources or fake ones.
Before you use AI, consider
1. the harm to your intellectual life and brain, already established
2. the environmental damage it is causing (yes, environmental) https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117
3. that it was not created for the good of mankind, but profit
4. the ethical implications of how it steals from EVERYONE. It is a massive plagiarism monster.
I remember the 1980s and the Just Say No campaign about drugs. It was criticized for a simplistic approach, although I am not sure why simplicity is a bad thing in this regard. I am saying the same to generative AI.
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