According to the latest Gallup poll, conducted in conjunction with the Walton Family Foundation and GSV Ventures, 51 percent of Gen Z people — those born between 1997 and 2012 — surveyed in the US who say they are using generative artificial intelligence at least weekly, negative emotions toward it have intensified over the past year. “Anger about the technology has risen, while excitement and hopefulness have dropped. Even daily AI users, who generally hold more favorable views of AI, have not become more positive. In addition, they told the pollsters they are not convinced that AI enhances creativity or critical thinking, and the majority believe it may come at a cost — particularly to learning.” Those with jobs said the risks of AI outweigh its benefits, and trust in AI-assisted work is lower than in exclusively human output. Bloomberg reacted to the results of the Gallup survey by saying the findings are contrary to what is normal with new technology. “Typically, younger people are more enthusiastic about new technologies, since they are usually the ones who benefit most from them in the future. The fact that they are souring on this one is not a good sign for its future.” Bloomberg contributor Walter Frick cited a 2023 study that found older people are generally more likely to believe new technologies are dangerous while younger people are more likely to embrace them. The pessimism about AI revealed by the Gallup data is atypical in that regard. “Many of us who didn’t grow up with AI naturally assume it is corroding society, just as past generations felt about the internet, radio, and novels,” he said. “But John Protzko, a professor of psychology at Central Connecticut State University and one of the authors of the Gallup study, suggested the results were consistent with his research. ‘Those who never use generative AI are the most anxious and angry about the technology. When we do not use a new technology, we tend to think it is scary or dangerous.’” Heavy AI users are generally more optimistic about its effects on their careers than occasional users and non-users. While that remains true, Gallup found that even those heavy users within Gen Z are growing more pessimistic. “As someone who uses generative AI daily, it has a good number of uses, but it is deeply flawed and wrong all of the time,” Protzko added. “That is probably why feelings are souring on Gen-AI, even among daily users. Once you use it consistently, you easily see its shortcomings. So we are dealing with a flawed technology that is fun to use for some purposes, but companies are over-adopting with the promise to not have to hire early-career workers.” Those are precisely the people the poll was directed toward. “Who wouldn’t sour on it under those conditions?” he asked. Boomers Go All In On AI Lloyd Alter, the Sage Of Toronto, has a different take on AI as it affects older people. In his latest Substack post, he said, “I have been playing with Claude. I worry that it is seductive and powerful and will make phone addiction look quaint.” He quotes Stephen Yoder, who retired from the Wall Street Journal in 2022. Today, he and his wife Karen write a blog for “retirement rookies” like themselves. Recently, they wrote that free time for retirees often gets consumed by social media. “I’m part of an epidemic among retirees,” Stephen told Alter. “Studies warn us that social media may harm children, and such scrutiny is critical. Addictive sites clearly can plague working adults, too. But we retirees have a particular vulnerability. We have time on our hands and no external authority telling us to snap out of it.” Karen compares it to drinking. “I get sucked in, coming up for air only when Steve wakes up and comes down the stairs several hours later and hopes for a little attention. That’s when I quickly hide my phone, as if it’s a secret bottle of gin.” Sherry Turkle wrote about the problems of social media in her 2011 book Alone Together. She updated her thinking in a recent Substack post about AI. “Social media was our gateway drug to conversations with machines. And now, we live as addicts poised to substitute one drug for another, using chatbot ‘relationships’ where we once used social media. Our criticism of technology lags behind its seductive power.” A recent study about AI Chatbot Addiction found that technology addictions have been around for years. Internet Gaming Disorder is a known phenomenon, as is social media addiction. “But AI may be different,” Alter wrote. “The study notes that it took two months to reach as many active users as Twitter did in five years. It is incredibly easy and friction-free.” Three AI Addictions The study classified three different addictions: Escapist Roleplay addiction type is characterized by users becoming deeply immersed into the fictional realities and characters created with chatbots, often preferring the fictional world over their real lives. The Pseudosocial Companion type addiction is characterized by users forming strong, emotional attachments to chatbots. The Epistemic Rabbit Hole type addiction involves persistently and compulsively engaging in open-ended queries for answers, to the extent that it compromises their responsibilities and well-being. Recently, Alter tried Claude for two weeks. He wrote that it “is the best search engine I have ever used, but it is absolutely an epistemic rabbit hole. Is it addiction? Another article, ‘The Compulsive Mind: Inside the Emerging Crisis of AI-Use Addiction,’ defines what is now called Generative AI Addiction Disorder (GAID) “Unlike passive digital addictions involving unidirectional content consumption, GAID is characterized as an active, creative engagement process. AI addiction can be defined, according to research synthesis, as ‘compulsive and excessive engagement with AI, resulting in detrimental effects on daily functioning and well-being, characterised by compulsive use, excessive time investment, emotional attachment, displacement of real-world activities, and negative cognitive and psychological impacts,’ “After two weeks with Claude, I can honestly say the pull is so much stronger than with my phone or iPad, and I already spend too much time on those. It’s instantly obvious that this is powerful stuff. I do not have GAID, but I can see how easy it would be to fall into it.” Boon Or Trap? So, the obvious question is, does AI open new vistas for humans or is it a trap? It’s not hard to see how it can be used to track our every thought, our every movement, and our every online activity. The State of Maryland has become the first state to ban using our online search history to set prices for food and consumer goods. Is there anyone who thinks using incognito mode when we go online protects our privacy from intrusive searchers by our government or scammers? Heroin and cocaine are addictive, as are chatbots and other AI tools. They also destroy any expectation of privacy we might have had in the days before the advent of these new technologies. Sam Altman and Elon Musk, along with Nvidia, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft, are prepared to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into AI technology. A prudent person would be wise to ask, “Why would they do that?” If you think the answer is to further the development of human civilization, you may want to ask yourself this question: cui bono? And if the answer is not me, then perhaps there might be a higher and better use for those hundreds of billions of dollars being devoted to more and bigger data centers, more lethal weapons, and more instant AI billionaires.
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