my stance on GEN AI
I do not use any generative AI in any of my writing, products or making of those things to my very best efforts. If any generative AI was used by third parties, that was not something I knew beforehand.
This is more informational about why I don’t use generative AI. I do implore you to read it all to understand where I’m coming from. I also have something I want to tell you at the end of this page. If you want to skip all of the information and just see what I want to tell you, scroll to the section labeled "Identity Quest".
Let’s start with a confession. I used to use ChatGPT before understanding the implications of generative AI…aaand all of the holier than thou people have stopped reading. If you’re still here to hear me out, thank you.
Part of the reason I continued to use it was because so many people on the internet just yelled and screamed at their phone saying how stupid those who use ChatGPT are and that they’re better than you because of it. “Yeah you must really hate the planet”, they’d say while yelling at people to do their own research because they shouldn’t have to baby you and you’re too dumb to get it anyway.
Well I did. I did research. I did a lot of research actually and there was a lot of the evidence I found that was in opposition to what those people were saying. It’s very easy to find information supporting the use of AI. Most people (me included) aren’t going to spend hours upon hours, days upon days searching for why they’re wrong. Would you? If you’re honest, probably not, unless you have an affinity toward researching and finding out new information, regardless of it you’re right or wrong.
I did spend a while looking for, reading and digesting articles about generative AI. Most of which said that it really wasn’t AS bad as most people made it out to be. One said something to the effect of “Yes AI is ‘bad for the environment’, but it’s about as bad as you taking a long shower or running the microwave for an extra 4 seconds” or something like that. I unfortunately can’t find the exact quote but you get what I mean. A lot of articles talked about how Almond farms in California take more water than an AI data center because that is what most people were talking about at the time. Many articles take the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” or the “it’s the corporations fault” stance. While both of those statements are technically true, there is a lot more to them than just those words.
Let’s talk numbers for a second. In its October 24, 2025 article, the Pew Research Center talks about “What we know about energy use at U.S. data centers amid the AI boom” they noted,
“Because data centers handle many types of workloads, it’s difficult to distinguish the exact share of their total electricity demand that comes from AI alone. But a typical AI-focused hyperscaler annually consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households. The larger ones currently under construction are expected to use 20 times as much, the IEA predicts...”
“Most of the electricity used by data centers – about 60% on average, the IEA reports – powers the servers that process and store digital information. This is especially true at AI-optimized hyperscale data centers, whose advanced servers are equipped with powerful computer chips that can perform trillions of mathematical calculations per second. These chips consume more more energy than their traditional counterparts, requiring two to four times as many watts to run.”
One hyperscaler (warehouse-sized facilities that store advanced servers capable of handling massive processing workloads.) consumes as much as 100 thousand households. These machines are running all the time, not just when someone is using ChatGPT or any other generative AI. So while the small portion of the energy used may be you, it is always running and using energy and resources that we may or may not be able to keep supplying.
Let’s talk about the numbers regarding water. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute noted, “A medium-sized data center can consume roughly 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling purposes…Large data centers can each “drink” up to 5 million gallons per day, or about 1.8 billion [with a b] annually, usage equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.” The article is very in depth and will be linked below if you’d like to read the full thing. The rest of the article talks about community impacts and fossil fuels as well. “With larger and new AI-focused data centers, water consumption is increasing alongside energy usage and carbon emissions.” being one of the highlights.
So even though one persons 100-word prompt is only equal to about 1 bottle of water multiplying that by million and billions of people sending multiple prompts a day adds up very quickly. From the Pew Research Center “In 2023, the country’s data centers directly consumed about 17 billion gallons of water” to put that into perspective 17 billion seconds is 538.7 years. That’s how much they directly consumed so that doesn’t count any indirect consumption like the water used to use fossil fuels. Because these data centers use so much energy and water, someone has to pay for how much extra energy the centers are using. Not only monetarily but also the power grid. Power grids need expensive upgrades to handle the increased energy demand from the new data centers. Who’s going to end up paying that? The residents of wherever the data center is.
“For example, in the PJM electricity market stretching from Illinois to North Carolina, data centers accounted for an estimated $9.3 billion price increase in the 2025-26 “capacity market” (i.e., the total amount of electricity that providers in the region commit to supplying). As a result, the average residential bill is expected to rise by $18 a month in western Maryland and $16 a month in Ohio. Americans may see more widespread price hikes in coming years. One study from Carnegie Mellon University estimates that data centers and cryptocurrency mining could lead to an 8% increase in the average U.S. electricity bill by 2030, potentially exceeding 25% in the highest-demand markets of central and northern Virginia.”
Those are the factual and environmental reasons for why I don’t use AI. On a more personal level, here are the reasons I don’t use ChatGPT or any other generative AI:
It’s not accurate most of the time. I can’t tell you how many times I used ChatGPT and then later found out that the information it gave me was either slightly or just completely inaccurate.
- At risk of my past self sounding like a moron: I was asking about company and for some reason I decided to just do a little research and within 1-2 google searches and 2 non-sponsored results found the information I was looking for and saw that the AI just made the answer up. I went back and was like why the fuck would you tell me x,y,z if the answer was actually a,b,c and all it could say was like “yeah you’re right that is the answer and i should have been more clear blah blah blah” or something like that, which ???? isn’t acceptable lmao like if a person did that to you and was like yes i’m sure that this is correct and then you find out later they just made it up you’d be pissed
It steals and regurgitates ideas, themes, books, art, etc from creators, artists, writers, etc
- Everything you use as a prompt is teaching the AI. Even if you DON’T use something as a prompt and you post on social media (like X or instagram) that AI is using the things you post to train the AI, whether you opt in or out.
- It’s also steal you. Everything you put in the AI is recorded. That’s the whole gimmick “Oh I can make the AI sound like me”…uhh yeah. The AI can become a “replica” of you. There may be some problems with that in the long run
It’s making the environment worse than it already was (like I mentioned above)
It genuinely stops critical thinking and using your brain. I need to use my brain so I can and will not use AI.
I hope you did actually take the time to read this and understand more about why I don’t use AI, specifically generative AI. I did not want to be one of those people who just bashed others for not knowing or not doing 80 hours of research. I wanted to give you my reasons, and hopefully some of those you can understand and relate too. I hope that you can look at your reasons for using AI (if you do) and weigh whether or not those things are as important as some of the things I’ve listed here. If you already don’t use AI, I hope this was informational for you and you understand why I took the time to make this instead of a 20 second tiktok about why people who use AI are stupid and suck and hate the environment. I think this will educate through a gentler fashion and will get more people to come to the side of not using AI. There will always be those who don’t want to learn or listen but if this helps a few people understand the implications of using AI and gets them to stop, I think that helps.
Identity Quest:
Now for the biggest thing that I’m terrified to say and put out. I used AI, specifically ChatGPT to help with the ideation and correction of Identity Quest and supplemental books. Now before you run away, I did end up changing a lot of the things I used ChatGPT for but I felt it was necessary for me to add this disclaimer just in case something slipped through without me changing it.
As far as ideation, the ideas for and within Identity Quest series are all my ideas. I came up with all of them. Where I used ChatGPT was to help with flow, with a metaphor, or with fleshing out an idea. Could I have done that by myself? Yes 100%. At the time, I wanted “another pair of eyes” and didn’t have anyone to ask. As far as correction, I used it as a literary helper. I wanted to make a sentence sound better or see if I should use this word versus that phrase or something along those lines.
I changed the Identity Quest series 100s of times in small increments and fixed things without ChatGPT after those helps but something was gnawing at me to be upfront about the use in the middle of the process.
I know there are a lot of people (specifically online) who are like “if you used that I will NEVER read your books or see you as an author”, which I’m okay with. I was (and still am) a young writer and author and I wasn’t confident in my abilities so I sought free help from something I knew wouldn’t judge me or make me feel less than. I can’t say I would’ve gotten that in the author space. I do not condone the use of ChatGPT, though I get why people use it. Most of the time, the humans who you want to ask for help are snarky and rude, or want money from you that you don’t have, or just won’t see it. I tried to reach out for help and didn’t get it. I no longer use ChatGPT for anything and it takes longer but that’s where my moral grounding lies.
Well Gabs why aren’t you just writing a book covering similar topics and putting that out instead??? The reason for that is because 1. I’ve edited the books enough after the fact so many times to where it’s all me and my voice and ideas, 2. I think these books are really important and I think the way they’re written will really resonate with people, and 3. full transparency, I’m really far in the process of completing the books.
Everything in the books are my ideas and they’re what I needed someone to tell me. Exactly how they’re written is exactly how I needed to hear them and I want to keep that authenticity. With that authenticity, I thought it was pertinent for my audience to know about that part of the process. If you feel like you can’t read or enjoy them because of this, I completely understand. I just wanted to be upfront and honest about this BECAUSE of my stance on AI. This is a reminder that I’m human. I make mistakes. I didn’t have the knowledge then, but now that I do, I have to make sure that I don’t try to hide them or pretend. Maybe there will be other book(s) that will cover topics expanding on the first books. However, I’m further than where I was when I wrote the books, and it wouldn’t be as real if I looked back on where I was, trying to remember how I felt in the moment when all the feelings and advice are written down already.
I will not be using any generative AI on anything I do or make (the disclaimer at the beginning of this blog still applies), and I couldn’t just lie and say that I never used chatGPT or AI for help on this project when I did, even if I went back and changed it over and over again myself.
I wrote this for my own peace of mind. I don’t want brownie points or anything from you or anyone else. I just know that if it was me on the other side of the screen, I’d want to know and would make a decision after digesting the information. If anything ever came out about this issue later, and I could’ve addressed it, but didn’t, I would feel horrible. This whole thing, the business, the books, the youtube, the tiktoks, everything, is about knowing and being yourself. In being 100% myself, I have to acknowledge my shortcomings as well as my victories.
If you made it this far, thank you for hearing me out. Thank you for your consideration. I hope that we can move forward and you will still read Identity Quest like I said I feel very strongly about it and think it’s a really important book. As a thank you for reading and for keeping an open mind, use code FUCKGENAI for 10% any single book or package. I really appreciate that you’re here and that you took the time to be real with me, even if it was wildly uncomfortable. Thank you thank you thank you again.
Stay Curious,
~ Gabs
Here are the two articles I referenced if anyone wants to check them out!
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption
