The people refusing to use AI
Nothing has convinced Sabine Zetteler of the value of using AI."I read a really great phrase recently that said something along the lines of 'why would I bother to read something someone couldn't be bothered to write' and that is such a powerful statement and one that aligns absolutely with my views."Ms Zetteler runs her own London-based communications agency, with around 10 staff, some full-time some part-time."What's the point of sending something we didn't write, reading a newspaper written by bots, listening to a song created by AI, or me making a bit more money by sacking my administrator who has four kids?"Where's the joy, love or aspirational betterment even just for me as a founder in that? It means nothing to me," she says.
Ms Zetteler is among those resisting the AI invasion, which really got going with the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022.Since then the service, and its many rivals have become wildly popular. ChatGPT is racking up over five billion visits a month, according to software firm Semrush.But training AI systems like ChatGPT requires huge amounts of energy and, once trained, keeping them running is also energy intensive. While it's difficult to quantify the electricity used by AI, a report by Goldman Sachs estimated that a ChatGPT query uses nearly 10 times as much electricity as a Google search query.
That makes some people uncomfortable.For Florence Achery, owner of Yoga Retreats & More, the environmental impact is one reason why she vows to stay away from AI."My initial reaction was that AI is soulless and is a contradiction with my business, which is all about human connection," says Achery, based in London."However, I found out that the environmental impact was awful with all the energy consumption required to run the data centres. I don't think that people are aware of that."While Ms Zetteler admits she respects AI for all the social-good it can achieve, she says she's concerned about the wider impact on society."I'm happy that AI exists for blind people if they can have articles translated by AI and anything that is truly beneficial. But in general, I don't think it will benefit us long-term."Is she worried it might have a knock-on effect on her business, especially if rival companies are using AI?"Like everything, I could save money by sending our agency to Milan on EasyJet flights rather than the train."Already my profit margins look unsuccessful if that's how you measure success, but how about if you measure success by how much you're contributing to society and how well you sleep?"
Sierra Hansen, who lives in Seattle and works in public affairs, also refuses to use AI. For her, she's concerned that the use of AI is harming our ability to problem solve."Our brain is the thing that helps organise what our days look like, not going to AI Copilot and asking it to tell it how to manage my schedule."Our job as a human is to apply critical thinking skills, and if you are feeding simple tasks into ChatGPT then you're not solving on your own. It's doing the thinking for you. If I want to listen to music, I don't need AI to create the perfect punk rock album for me."
But not everyone has the luxury of opting out of AI.Jackie Adams (not her real name), who works in digital marketing, resisted AI initially on environmental grounds, and because she thought using it was lazy."I heard about the energy needed to power data centres and the amount land they take up, and it didn't sit right with me. I didn't understand why we needed it," she says.However, about a year ago her three colleagues at the marketing firm she works for started adopting AI, for tasks such as copywriting and idea generation.Six months ago Ms Adams had to follow them, after being told she had to cut her budget."Then it was out my control," she says. She feels that continuing to resist would have hurt her career."I started playing with it a bit more after reading job descriptions asking for AI experience. I recently realised that if I don't implement it into my ways of working, I'm going to get left behind."Now, she says, she doesn't view tapping into AI as laziness anymore."It can elevate my work and make some things better," adding that she uses it to refine copywriting work and for editing photos.
The moment to opt out of AI has already passed, says James Brusseau, a philosophy professor specialising in AI ethics at Pace University in New York."If you want to know why a decision is made, we will need humans. If we don't care about that, then we will probably use AI," he says."So, we will have human judges for criminal cases, and human doctors to make decisions about who should get the transplant. But, weather forecasting will be gone soon, and anesthesiology too," says Prof Brusseau.
Ms Adam has accepted using AI at work, but she still feels despondent about AI's growing influence."Even when you do a Google search it includes an AI overview, while some emails have a topline summary, So now it almost feels like we have no control. How do I turn all that off? It's snowballing."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Iran oil doomsday in Hormuz may be more fear than reality: Bousso
LONDON, June 22 - U.S. strikes on several Iranian nuclear sites represent a meaningful escalation of the Middle East conflict that could lead Tehran to disrupt vital exports of oil and gas from the region, sparking a surge in energy prices. But history tells us that any disruption would likely be short-lived. Investors and energy markets have been on high alert since Israel launched a wave of surprise airstrikes across Iran on June 13, fearing disruption to oil and gas flows out of the Middle East, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz, opens new tab, a chokepoint between Iran and Oman through which around 20% of global oil and gas demand flows. Benchmark Brent crude prices have risen by 10% to over $77 a barrel since June 13. While Israel and Iran have targeted elements of each other's energy infrastructure, there has been no significant disruption to maritime activity in the region so far. But President Donald Trump's decision to join Israel by bombing three of Iran's main nuclear sites in the early hours of Sunday could alter Tehran's calculus. Iran, left with few cards to play, could retaliate by hitting U.S. targets across the region and disrupting oil flows. While such a move would almost certainly lead to a sharp spike in global energy prices, history and current market dynamics suggest any move would likely be less damaging than investors may fear. The first question to ask is whether Iran is actually capable of seriously disrupting or blocking the Strait of Hormuz. The answer is probably yes. Iran could attempt to lay mines across the Strait, which is 55 km (34 miles) wide at its narrowest point. The country's army or the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could also try to strike or seize vessels in the Gulf, a method they have used on several occasions in recent years. Moreover, while Hormuz has never been fully blocked, it has been disrupted several times. During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the two sides engaged in the so-called "Tanker Wars" in the Gulf. Iraq targeted Iranian ships, and Iran attacked commercial ships, including Saudi and Kuwaiti oil tankers and even U.S. navy ships. Following appeals from Kuwait, then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan deployed the navy between 1987 and 1988 to protect convoys of oil tankers in what was known as Operation Earnest Will. It concluded shortly after a U.S. navy ship shot down Air Iran flight 655, killing all of its 290 passengers on board. Tensions in the strait flared up again at the end of 2007 in a series of skirmishes between the Iranian and U.S. navies. This included one incident where Iranian speedboats approached U.S. warships, though no shots were fired. In April 2023, Iranian troops seized the Advantage Sweet crude tanker, which was chartered by Chevron, in the Gulf of Oman. The vessel was released more than a year later. Iranian disruption of maritime traffic through the Gulf is therefore certainly not unprecedented, but any attempt would likely be met by a rapid, forceful response from the U.S. navy, limiting the likelihood of a persistent supply shock. Indeed, history has shown that severe disruptions to global oil supplies have tended to be short-lived. Iraq's invasion of neighbouring Kuwait in August 1991 caused the price of Brent crude to double to $40 a barrel by mid-October. Prices returned to the pre-invasion level by January 1992 when a U.S.-led coalition started Operation Desert Storm, which led to the liberation of Kuwait the following month. The start of the second Gulf war between March and May 2003 was even less impactful. A 46% rally in the lead-up to the war between November 2002 and March 2003 was quickly reversed in the days preceding the start of the U.S.-led military campaign. Similarly, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sparked a sharp rally in oil prices to $130 a barrel, but prices returned to their pre-invasion levels of $95 by mid-August. These relatively quick reversals of oil price spikes were largely thanks to the ample spare production capacity available at the time and the fact that the rapid oil price increase curbed demand, says Tamas Varga, an analyst at oil brokerage PVM. Global oil markets were also rocked during the 1973 Arab oil embargo and after the 1979 revolution in Iran, when strikes on the country's oilfields severely disrupted production. But those did not involve the blocking of Hormuz and were not met with a direct U.S. military response. The current global oil market certainly has spare capacity. OPEC+, an alliance of producing nations, today holds around 5.7 million barrels per day in excess capacity, of which Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hold 4.2 million bpd. The concern today is that the vast majority of the oil from Saudi Arabia and the UAE is shipped via the Strait of Hormuz. The two Gulf powers could bypass the strait by oil pipelines, however. Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, producing around 9 million bpd, has a crude pipeline that runs from the Abqaiq oilfield on the Gulf coast in the east to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in the west. The pipeline has capacity of 5 million bpd and was able to temporarily expand its capacity by another 2 million bpd in 2019. The UAE, which produced 3.3 million bpd of crude oil in April, has a 1.5 million bpd pipeline linking its onshore oilfields to the Fujairah oil terminal that is east of the Strait of Hormuz. But this western route could be exposed to attacks from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have severely disrupted shipping through the Suez Canal in recent years. Additionally, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar currently have no clear alternatives to the strait. It is possible that Iran will choose not to take the dramatic step of blocking the strait in part because doing so would disrupt its own oil exports. Tehran may also consider any further escalation fruitless in light of U.S. involvement and will instead try to downplay the importance of the U.S. strikes and come back to nuclear negotiations. In the meantime, spooked energy markets, fearing further escalation, are apt to respond to the U.S. strikes with a sharp jump in crude prices. But even in a doomsday scenario where the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, history suggests markets should not expect any supply shock to be persistent. Enjoying this column? Check out Reuters Open Interest (ROI),, opens new tab your essential new source for global financial commentary. ROI delivers thought-provoking, data-driven analysis. Markets are moving faster than ever. ROI, opens new tab can help you keep up. Follow ROI on LinkedIn, opens new tab and X., opens new tab
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Flights from London to Doha and Dubai cancelled after US strikes Iran
Flights from London to Dubai and Doha have been cancelled after Donald Trump ordered a US attack on Iran's nuclear sites. It comes after a British Airways (BA) flight from London Heathrow to Dubai was diverted to Zurich on Saturday night. The BA109 flight departed from the UK at 9.53pm on Saturday and reached Saudi Arabia before the Boeing 787 Dreamliner changed its course, landing in Switzerland, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24. All of the airline's flights to Dubai and Doha that were scheduled to depart from Heathrow on Sunday have been cancelled, including return flights, the company said. Israel announced on Sunday that it had closed its airspace to both inbound and outbound flights in the wake of the US attacks. The US struck three nuclear test sites in Iran overnight prompting Tehran to launch a retaliatory ballistic missile barrage against Israel. In a statement, British Airways said: 'As a result of recent events, we have adjusted our flight schedule to ensure the safety of our customers and crew, which is always our top priority. 'We are contacting our customers to advise them of their options while we work through this developing situation.' BA is offering a flexible booking policy for customers already booked onto flights to Dubai and Doha between Sunday and Tuesday who wish to change their dates of travel.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Oil to open higher as US strikes on Iran boost supply risk premium
LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - Oil is likely to rise by $3-5 per barrel when trading resumes on Sunday evening after the U.S. attacked Iran at the weekend, market analysts said, with gains expected to accelerate only if Iran retaliates hard and causes a major oil supply disruption. U.S. President Donald Trump said he had "obliterated" Iran's main nuclear sites in strikes overnight, joining an Israeli assault in an escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself. Iran is OPEC's third-largest crude producer. Global oil benchmark Brent crude could gain $3 to $5 per barrel when markets open, SEB analyst Ole Hvalbye said in a note. Brent settled at $77.01 a barrel on Friday and U.S. West Texas Intermediate at $73.84. "An oil price jump is expected," said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad and a former OPEC official. "Even in the absence of immediate retaliation, markets are likely to price in a higher geopolitical risk premium." Crude had settled down on Friday after the U.S. imposed fresh Iran-related sanctions, including on two entities based in Hong Kong, and counter-terrorism-related sanctions, according to a notice posted to the U.S. Treasury Department website. Brent has risen 11% while WTI has gained around 10% since the conflict began on June 13 with Israel targeting Iran's nuclear sites and Iranian missiles hitting buildings in Tel Aviv. Currently stable supply conditions and the availability of spare production capacity among other OPEC members have limited oil's gains. Risk premiums have typically faded when no supply disruptions occurred, said Giovanni Staunovo, analyst at UBS. "The direction of oil prices from here will depend on whether there are supply disruptions - which would likely result in higher prices - or if there is a de-escalation in the conflict, resulting in a fading risk premium," he said. A senior Iranian lawmaker on June 19 said that the country could shut the Strait of Hormuz as a way of hitting back against its enemies, though a second member of parliament said this would only happen if Tehran's vital interests were endangered. About a fifth of the world's total oil consumption passes through the strait. SEB said that any closure of the strait or spillover into other regional producers would "significantly lift" oil prices, but said they saw this scenario as a tail risk rather than a base case given China's reliance on Gulf crude. Ajay Parmar, oil and energy transition analytics director at consultancy ICIS, said it was unlikely Iran would be able to enforce a blockage of the strait for too long. "Most of Iran's oil exports to China pass through this strait and Trump is unlikely to tolerate the inevitable subsequent oil price spike for too long - the diplomatic pressure from the world's two largest economies would also be significant," he said.
