Choosing Quiet: I'm No Longer Using AI Editors

To have cognitive dissonance about our ethics and day-to-day actions is to be sane. Surely, this is the case. How else are we supposed to function in a world that has such immense suffering and with our own comfort and existence feels often as though it comes at the cost of others' suffering?

I see countless people, people who think they're morally good, who compartmentalize well. Pet owners that would die for their dog or cat but doesn't bat an eye at eating a similarly emotionally-intelligent mammal such as a pig or a cow. Animals that are [capable of feeling pain and suffering](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8sx4s79c), animals who deserve the same amount of time and living as the pets in question. [Research has shown that pigs share cognitive capacities with dogs, chimpanzees, elephants, and dolphins](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/201506/pigs-are-intelligent-emotional-and-cognitively-complex), exhibiting emotional contagion, self-awareness, and complex social behaviours.

Please, don't get me wrong. This isn't finger-wagging or pearl-clutching. I am not gnashing my teeth at meat eaters, I know that isn't effective rhetoric. People are never convinced by this modailty of dialogue. Much more importantly, though, I sincerely do not think these are bad people. We take stock of it all, we figure out what's worth the cost and sacrifice. What juice is worth the squeeze?

I bring up this example to make a (perhaps somewhat awkward) parallel to people's stances on AI\* (I mean token-based large language models when I say AI). AI harms and creates suffering, though I do need to concede it has (on record) killed less than two dozen people,

Regardless, I think it is a helpful parallel because the same cognitive dissonance can occur. I tell myself I only use AI for gruntwork, That if I treat it like a utility and a tool instead of a bizarre messianic replacement for my original human thoughts that it is not a big deal.

But it is still a big deal, isn't it? [AI is causing RAM shortages](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ai-driving-up-ram-price-9.7011003), [AI is taking all of our land, water, and energy](https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/features/ai-data-centers-are-coming-for-your-land-water-and-power/). These are not problems to hand-wave away. A typical data center [uses 300,000 gallons of water each day](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ai-data-centers-and-water/), with large facilities consuming up to 5 million gallons daily --- equivalent to the needs of a town of 50,000 residents. [By 2027, global AI demand could account for 1.1 to 1.7 trillion gallons of water withdrawal](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/11/circular-water-solutions-sustainable-data-centres/), more than four to six times Denmark's t