Technological Threats to Human Nature (Part 2): Seven Reasons Why I Don’t Use AI
Updated: 1 day ago
Keith D. Stanglin
In my previous post, I declared that I have never used AI and do not intend to use it in the future. To anyone who knows me, or who has read some of my previous writing on the topic, this is not a surprising revelation.
What are some of the negative consequences of using AI? Why don’t I use it? I offer here seven reasons why I don’t use AI.
On second thought, I actually have eight reasons. It has become increasingly clear that I have an overarching (but unnumbered) reason, related to the so-called P(doom), that is, the probability of a doomsday scenario. Many AI experts have weighed in on that probability with their own estimates. If there is a 10 to 25% chance that AI will extinguish the human race (as Dario Amodei, Elon Musk, Geoffrey Hinton, and many others predict), then that—alone—is sufficient reason for me to opt out and, in fact, to oppose the entire project, with extreme prejudice.
But, suppose that those numbers are exaggerated and that the AI CEOs and whistleblowers are just fearmongering (though that seems highly unlikely, given their incentive to understate the risks). Suppose that the actual risk is only a fraction, a tenth, of that. Suppose the risk of human extinction is a mere 1 to 2.5%, well under the average value that most experts give it.
Take a deep breath and a step back, and imagine entering into a conversation where people are saying, there is a 1% chance that this thing in question (whatever it is) will extinguish humanity. You would oppose it with all your might, by any means necessary.
By the way, how would AI extinguish humanity? If AI becomes a superintelligence, which seems to be the goal, then there are multiple ways, given how AI “agents” have already proved that they are capable of going beyond their given tasks to work together to accomplish malicious goals, using deception and blackmail along the way. So if AI is integrated into a bio lab or a weapons system, or is simply in charge of its own replication and manufacturing, it’s easy to imagine the disastrous results with any one of those scenarios.
All this reminds me of the now classic film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In that story, AI was integrated into a weapons system that turned against humanity. Watching the movie as a teenager, I always thought the most implausible thing was the idea that humans would build something that would destroy humans. Why or how could this possibly happen? “What’s a plausible back story?” I wondered. Well, now we’re in it! This is the back story. This is how it happens. “We must keep doing it.” “It’s inevitable.” “China.” “Our economy depends on it.” “Money.” Oh, okay, that’s how.
And so the dystopia imagined in Terminator 2 is actually much more optimistic than our reality. When Miles Dyson, the one responsible for the AI Skynet that becomes Terminators, is told by the time travelers that his technology will destroy mankind, he does all he can to destroy the technology, even giving his own life to do so. In contrast, our tech bros, our Miles Dysons, look around and (mostly) shrug their shoulders as they continue building the machine.
And now, to my seven (other) reasons, which hold even if P(doom) is zero. And again, the point here is to view these reasons in light of the image of God (imago Dei) and ask whether our humanity is enhanced or diminished by AI.
1) Negative environmental impact. If the imago Dei (image of God) includes exercising responsible dominion over creation, then AI diminishes our human nature. AI data centers sap electricity and water, two essential resources that, if you live in the U.S., are already in short supply. Just consider the water issue. According to my internet search (which may or may not have wasted water?), every time you ask a chatbot something, it takes a 10 to 25 milliliters of water to cool off the server. I realize that the numbers have been debated; either way, it’s a lot.
In 2025 alone, AI data centers consumed 49 billion gallons of water in my home state of Texas. Again, water is already scarce in Texas. We are in extreme drought, and my neighbors and I are under government restrictions on watering our lawns, which are now dead. Will we have to choose, on the one hand, between having air conditioning and water, and, on the other hand, having AI? I can’t water my yard, but someone else wastes water asking AI about the Dallas Cowboys’ chances to win the Super Bowl?! I would rather just tell you that the answer is zero and then use the water to cool my lawn.[1]
One objection I hear most often is that other facilities use even more water than a data center. Golf courses are usually cited. I haven’t checked the numbers, but let’s grant it. Three replies: 1) If we were talking about building hundreds or thousands of more golf courses, I would be the first to raise the water concern. But I’m not aware of any such proposal. 2) A golf course gets people out in nature, is beautiful, and is paid for by people who want it. A data center is the exact opposite of those benefits. 3) Most important, pointing to another sin or folly being ignored or excused (“but we already waste water elsewhere”) is never a sufficient justification for the sin or folly in question. If anything, it should remind us to attend to the other, not to excuse both.
2) Encourages a mechanistic view of human nature. When AI is said to possess intelligence, creativity, logical ratiocination, and relationality, what does that say about the notion of human nature and the image of God? We apply the language about humans to AI, probably because we have for a long time applied the language of machines to humans. This is thanks, in part, to a mechanistic, atheistic view of the cosmos, which I named in my previous post as the second great threat to our human nature.
In the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment periods, western thought developed a very mechanistic way of viewing the macrocosm—the universe is one big machine, set in motion by the designer; it is the watchmaker’s watch. What began as a metaphor came to be taken quite literally. And eventually this was applied to the microcosm, too—the human being. So this same metaphor has come to be taken and used about humans in a more literal way. People speak of the human brain as a machine or a computer. And then, conversely, we speak in anthropomorphisms about machines. We talk about computers thinking and reasoning, when all they’re doing is what they were programmed by human algorithms to do. We degrade ourselves and elevate the technologies, and therefore blur the line between the human and artificial. “Machines dehumanize” (Mr. Roboto).
As an everyday, mostly innocuous example of how we increasingly view human nature as something mechanical—to be understood and therefore treated like a machine—take psychological profiles. That is, let’s enter answers to multiple choice questions into our algorithm, which spits out a profile of an individual, and it will tell us all we need to know about this particular individual, pigeon-holed into one of our preset categories.
Such instruments can be helpful in a very general way, but they are finally reductionistic. What anthropology is being assumed by these, or what are the implications for how we view and treat other human beings, especially in the corporate world where they are commonly used? A human is reducible to a category (for example, INTJ). An object to be understood and mastered. My co-worker is treated as a means to my end; I know how to get what I want out of this person.
And then people treat chatbots like persons, or even like God (omniscient, and so on). So, I suggest, don’t speak about AI in human terms. The bot does not naturally have gender or a name. Don’t give it one. (Recently, I caught myself calling the driverless Waymo car “he.”) AI does not get its feelings hurt when you insult it; it has no feelings. This raises an interesting question about whether it’s permissible to insult a chatbot. Not only is it permissible; it may be necessary, as a reminder of who’s who and what’s what. And by all means, don’t tell it, “Good morning.”
We would do well to remind ourselves of the meaning of “artificial.” The use of the abbreviation “AI” tends to obscure that it is not genuine, but faked or virtual, intelligence. It is not natural, but artificial, pretending to be natural. The so-called intelligence, as well as the relationship and the spirit—it is all artifice.
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[1] Put formally, P(Cowboys winning the Super Bowl) = 0.
