After a year of AI

I’ve been dabbling with Perplexity AI for nearly a year now and decision time is looming. Should I renew my subscription. Or should I look elsewhere (e.g. Halomate)? Or should I swear off AI altogether?

At the moment, I feel no need to look elsewhere. I try to be circumspect in my use of AI, so I have not attempted to exploit the full potential of Perplexity. Therefore, in spite of occasionally being tempted by the latest bells and whistles offered elsewhere, I see no point in starting again with something else.

The question of whether I should abandon AI is less straightforward to answer. There is a real case to be made against its use. As far as I can see, that case boils down to two arguments:

• AI encourages mental laziness. We are tempted to accept what it tells us as true without critical engagement. Often, the output is so polished (at least superficially) that we are tempted to submit it as our own work – hence the deluge of AI slop on the Internet.
• The environmental argument. AI data centres put extreme demands on power and water supplies. They run so hot that they raise temperatures in their locales measurably above what would be expected (at the same time, overheating rivers with waste cooling water). Some have massive backup diesel generators which produce great quantities of air pollution. And these ills are growing exponentially with the AI bubble. On top of this, there is the psychological harm to the humans who are employed (often on low wages in developing countries) to monitor and censor inappropriate outputs.

I’m not terribly bothered about the threat of mental laziness. The crucial point is always to treat the output of AI in the same way as you treat any other secondary source – always insist on references (and always check them) and never plagiarize. In any case, unlike many chatbots, Perplexity AI is essentially an AI-powered search engine and that is how I use it (as a Google search on crystal meth).

But I remain conflicted on the environmental and wider social issues. Yes, AI speeds up my research at a time of life when I may not have very much time left. But does the improved efficiency of my research justify my implicit support for the damage that AI is doing on a global scale? If I were a rugged individualist like so many tech bros, the answer would be an unequivocal ‘yes’. But I’m an Orthodox Christian, so I have to balance the goods of AI (not just my vanishingly small contribution to the sum of human knowledge buts its role in pushing forward the bounds of our knowledge in so many fields) against the environmental and social ills. I’m unable to come to a clear view on this, so I suspect that I will continue to use Perplexity for the time being.