Hi everyone. I’m a senior Computer Engineering student and my girlfriend is a senior Mechanical Engineering student.
She is caring, cute, clever and really thoughtful. I love everything about her. But the one thing that always bugs me out is the amount of AI she uses.
When we met 2 years ago the first topic we talked about was about AI and ever since that day I always mentioned her the advancements and dangers of AI. I said how there can’t be ethical AI and any use of it is harmful.
She agrees with me every time and says she will decrease her usage but at the end she uses it still. Projects, reports, homeworks all go through the LLM. She shows me her work and I can’t congratulate her without forcing myself because I know it’s AI.
She has diagnosed ADHD and I think this might be one of the reasons but I still don’t understand. She sometimes spends hours working. If she had spent that time with pen and paper she could’ve reached the same conclusions she did with AI but with more understanding of her work.
I don’t want to upset her but also seeing someone this close to me do this is saddening to me. What should I do? Should I just ignore it?
I also have ADHD and dont use AI.
What i do with my partner who also uses AI to do stuff on their website or the server, and when ever I call them out for it, they get defensive. So i just ignore it now. It is not a thing i want to throw the relationship away for.
We are both IT. Them Sys. Admin, me Software Dev…
Have you explained to her why you’re against LLMs? How they work? This is how I got some of my friends to stop using ChatGPT or Character.ai
When you peek behind the curtain and see these are just algorithms, at their core, they become a lot less impressive.
If nothing else, at least push her to use Local AI models using something like ollama or odysseus or LMstudio. This helped get one other friend off AI because, guess what, running this on your own machine makes you feel the consequences of it.
Aside from the AI subject just agreeing with you everytime, then not changing, is a form of fawning. It’s avoidant, it usually comes from a disorganized attachment style. I only bring this up because this isn’t really about AI it’s about her behavior around it and taking inventory on the relationship and each partners attachment style can help communication, understanding and decision making.
She’s a STUDENT? Why the hell would you cheat as a student? That seems incredibly counterproductive
Yeah ignore it. Really if it bugs you that much I would do something about it, but that feels dramatic to me. But I’m not in your shoes and I don’t know your moral compass or how annoying this girlfriend is with her ai use. This is really a you issue though and I would not ask peoples advice, and if you wanted real advice I wouldn’t ask the anti ai space for one.
I can tell you though, there’s tons of things I can tell you about my partner and what they do and how it bugs me. Every time they use our stove I say never put it above 6 just give it time. And everytime we Cook the stove is blasted on full.
I could get up set and argue about it which I did for a short period of time. But clearly they aren’t going to change and I’m being obnoxious about it.
That doesn’t mean i don’t love them, its just a balance of learning eachothers quirks and embracing them rather than making things more adversarial than it needs to be. But again I can’t draw those lines for you, you can’t ignore something that really bugs you. Really just talk to them about it.
Replace “uses AI” with “is an alcoholic” and follow similar advice.
I’m anti-AI but these two things are not remotely similar. You can’t slowly Claude yourself to death over a number of years as your friends and family are forced to watch.
AI psychosis is a real thing, and multiple people have committed suicide because of it.
There are lawsuits against AI companies for those deaths.
So yes, you can in fact “Claude yourself to death”.
Below is one of the best sourced comments that I’ve seen about listing the negative aspects of LLMs/AI.
One of my main ones is, thinking about spinning up a jet engine, next to someone’s backyard, each time a LLM is used for a web search.
Stick to the facts when you explain your views, explore ways to run local models for her if you can stretch that far.
Reasons not to use AI-LLM artificial intelligence. (There is probably a bunch more in the 7 months since this list was written.)
Perhaps address the impact this will have in the future in her career. From decades of experience in the mechanical field, I will tell you that if she doesn’t have the knowledge in her head she will get laughed at and fired. AI has not really penetrated the mechanical field. Yes, there is AI in CAD and other software, but at best it is for tinkerers and not scalable. Without the knowledge she won’t last a month in a mech eng role, assuming she manages to even get one.
She recently used AI in Solidworks to generate a ladder and said everyone at the internship is doing the same and telling her its the future.
Do you think that’s the case? Atleast for CAD in particular.
She may be considered for an entry level mech eng role, but based on her workflow her knowledge of fundamentals of mechanical design would be questioned. Generating models is very minor. She needs to understand basics of construction, manufacturing, material selection, design limitations and most critically overlooked, tolerances. She won’t become a senior engineer without being a junior engineer and the learning curve is steep. The CAD portion is general grunt work, which to be clear is what she is offloading here. That grunt work is where a mech eng refines their knowledge of the previously mentioned topics and learns how to apply them to mechanical design for manufacturing, assembly and user experience, skills which a good mech eng is trying to develop. This isn’t even touching on designing for strict constraints like regulatory standards. Engineering is a delicate balance of a million different compromises, and she must understand the compromises she is making with her designs. If it was about just chugging out models she would be screwed along with every other junior mech eng, and would be replaced by AI. This won’t happen because AI is not trustworthy, lies and hallucinates. The design review method is done by a person with whom you can have meaningful dialogue with. AI erodes critical thinking, which is what she needs to learn, but isn’t while using AI.
I’m sure enough people have told you to yeet her into the sun. I empathize if you decide you want to work this through with her. I have had issues like this with my own partner.
I found this video essay by Dr. Fatima helpful to empathize in my case. You agree on some of the fundamentals it seems. She has a habit and somewhat agrees that it’s bad. But due to stress or whatever reason she can’t kick it. So try to help her to work on this. It’s good to keep in mind that even half-measures can do lots of good. Maybe she isn’t super principaled in her AI abstention like you, but there’s a wide range between occasional indulgance and full-on dependency.
One seemingly small thing that reduced a lot of conflict for us was me replacing her search widget on her android. She kept quoting AI summaries from Google at me and I kept getting annoyed until I offered to help by changing it to DuckDuckGo. Maybe you’re better skilled in configuring your devices and can offer to protect her from addictive design patterns she is barely aware of.
I’ve had experiences that relate to your post, and I understand how difficult it can be to be in your position. I can’t really make your decisions for you, but hopefully some of the following will help:
First, since I made the post I linked here, my mother made an abrupt and unexpected reversal. One day out of the blue, she asked me to help her switch her default search engine on her computer to
noai.duckduckgo.comand switch her phone’s browser to the Duck Duck Go browser and disable all AI features. (She’s not technical, so she appreciated, wanted, and requested the tech support assistance.) I don’t really know what prompted her to make the switch, but I’m elated by it. She’s still quite addicted to YouTube/Facebook shorts and some of the videos I see just by virtue of the fact that they’re playing in my viscinity are slop, but she usually makes the comment that “oh, that’s AI”. (Hell, we watched something on some streaming platform that had a slop scam ad targeting seniors with promises of some “Medicare grocery card” or something and my mother was the one who pointed out it was AI.) Her attitude has changed on the topic quite drastically. Between that post and my mother’s reversal, I did tell her “don’t read me that slop” or “yeah, but you can’t trust that because it’s LLM output” not terribly infrequently when she read me Google AI summaries or “oh, that’s not real though” when she’d show me a slop YouTube short. So it’s not like she didn’t get that I disapproved, and I think part of the reason for the reversal was probably for my benefit specifically. I’ve always been careful not to make any demands on her about things that aren’t my business. If she wants to consume slop content, that’s not really on me to correct. (To express concern, maybe, but not to demand she changes how she stewards her own brain.) But I don’t want that shit infecting my brain with LLM-hallucinated misconceptions, and I’ve been careful to make it clear that the boundaries I’m setting are where she ends and I begin. I’m not trying to control her, I’m trying to control me.Second, I usually try to avoid making predictions about the future, but more and more voices are saying now that there’s a strong possibility the AI bubble will pop within a couple of years. OpenAI, Anthropic, etc are all giving away LLM access at a huge loss. They’ve already bumped prices and gamed the system to extract more revenue, but it isn’t enough. At some point they’ll have to either shutter their generative AI efforts or start charging what they actually cost (and then shutter their generative AI efforts when it becomes even more clear that virtually nobody is willing to pay anywhere near that). Assuming that all goes down the way I’m hoping, at that point your girlfriend may well basically lose access to LLMs. (Running LLMs locally is a little cheaper in the long run, but there’s a steep effort curve and a steep up-front-cost curve (not to mention ongoing power usage bills) to get anything that even the boosters would call acceptable results. I doubt any significant portion of people using LLMs today will undertake such and effort or cost.) All that to say, there’s a strong possibility she’ll quit using Generative AI just by virtue of an impending massive bubble pop.
I dunno. I probably am not one to take advice from when it comes to relationships (or economics, for that matter). You’ll have to decide how to address and/or deal with this issue yourself. I told you what I did and what resulted. I think boundaries, done properly, are generally a good thing. I didn’t think it would work for me to pretend I was fine with being force-fed slop frequently and it worked out. But whatever you end up doing, I hope your situation resolves similarly positively. Good luck.
Using it for school work is demonstrably not learning. In fact using an LLM is antithical to learning: it’s cognitive offloading.
If she cares about actually learning she’d do her own school work.
That’s the problem I see here… my 2¢
Every time she gives you a paper to review, quiz her on the content within it.
Play some games / do activities together that don’t involve internet / computer or any technology and best if it require focus and attention. ex yoga, board games, but also cooking from physical book or just experimenting in kitchen.
Hey here’s something you should probably hear: You’re wrong.
You claim there’s no ethical use of AI, yet you don’t ever actually prove that claim. Your GF sits there, ethically using it in front of you and you can’t see it because your ideology blinds you. You literally ran to the fuck_ai forum for ideological relief. It’s kind of pathetic. Leave your GF alone.
If you actually read the comments you will see most people don’t act like a circle jerk. Some say I’m wrong, some say I should break up with her and some say we should talk instead. I wrote here because people here might understand me.
You should phrase your concerns to her in the form ‘Your use of AI harms me in <specific way(s)>’ to her, then. Don’t talk about the planet, don’t talk about licenses. Is she not spending time with you that she’s spending with the AI? Is she spending excessive money on tokens and hurting your family? What is she doing that’s actually hurting you? Having a different opinion than you doesn’t count as a harm.
ETA: I also read every comment in the thread before I responded. No one just proferred that maybe you’re just flat out wrong and need to stop pushing your weird opinion this deep into your relationship. And I think the fact that you ran to the fuck_ai community to ask for relationship advice is testament to that. Come on bro.
Why are you so violent? Do you also use AI and feel bad to be called out?
As I suspected you’re just looking for agreement and not advice. So yeah, you’re right dude just keep pressing her on this, it would be a great idea.
Until everything made by LLMs trained on copyleft materials are legally forced to have all generated content be automatically licensed under copy-left licenses I don’t wanna hear that “ethical use” bullshit.
Also make sure all the training infrastructure uses renewable energy, landmass, and water.
If any profit is made, donate enough to cover environmental damage.
Make sure the AI products won’t take away any job on earth.
Or just, you know, don’t fucking bother.
I agree with all of the above, but also think UBI should also be implemented as a safety measure for those losing jobs to automation as a whole.
You’re making a legitimate argument, but an argument isn’t a fact. he can say to his gf til he’s blue in the face that she’s being unethical, but he hasn’t demonstrated (nor can he really beyond theoretical hand waving) who is actually harmed by her use of AI. That isn’t to say there aren’t real harms that can happen and do happen, but it’s a bit ridiculous to tell someone who’s using an LLM to summarize an email that they’re responsible for the downfall of society. Get a grip
It is a fact that LLMs took the teeth away from copy left licenses.
You can now legally make a proprietary version of a copyleft licensed work by having an llm gobble it up and regurgitate it.
As someone who has donated money to, daily drives, and has even written software under a copyleft license? Yes that tangibly hurt me. It undermined my work, and others work I helped pay for, and even just work I use for free, and gave businesses a legal pathway to Embrace, Extend, Extinguish said software.
Don’t believe me? Some asshole who thinks he’s doing the lords work already started doing it to GIMP. Even if its open source, its still stealing the spotlight and funding from the actual FLOSS solutions worth using.
Taking the teeth away from a license many rely on isn’t an intangible harm, its a very real problem. We used to be able to legally threaten companies into playing nice, that needs to be brought back.
…ok, so are you saying that this guy should start talking about copyleft licenses and that will resolve his relationship dispute? Because I’m saying he should accept that she has a different opinion and that he may even be wrong since she’s demonstrably not using it unethically (assuming she’s not trying to LLM-wash some open source software), I’m not really sure how what you mentioned is a relevant harm that would change his gf’s opinion?
ETA: To give you a better idea what I’m talking about, let’s say that the gf really just ethically thinks playing video games is a massive waste of time, and she raises that concern. And that he thinks that playing video games is a social outlet so that he can spend time with friends from high school, and have a fun time, and that the time he spends with it is in balance with the rest of his priorities and life.
The GF has a valid opinion about video games, but she’s not going to win any arguments with someone who is enjoying their usage in a balanced way with random ideological arguments, and moreover, she needs to either accept that this is something he enjoys to do in the balance of his life, and/or that she gasp may be wrong and/or leave the relationship if it’s really that big of a deal, but it would seem like she’s a bit of a nutter if she does that, to me at least.
You can say the same about any creative commons media they may have swallowed. There are copyleft forms of licenses for all creations in all domains. By using LLM generated content, you’re using that training data.
Keep backpeddling all you want, I demonstrated one of tbe many ways that LLMs create inherit and tangible harm as asked.
As for this guys girlfriend? I’ll refer to my first comment. (Admittedly edited a coupla mins after its original posting, so ya nights missed it):
That being said, yeah that’s rough and you’re probably gonna have to just accept it if a coupla conversations aren’t doing it, because trying to ‘fix’ your partners like they’re a project is both unhealthy and condescending.
I wasn’t asking for an abstract concept of how LLMs can cause ethical harms, I was asking how this person ever made the case that his GF’s particular use of AI was causing ethical harm. As I said in my last comment, responding with esoteric random arguments (arguments, not facts, I still remember when ‘theft’ required actually having to lose property) is not how you resolve a dispute in a relationship or a difference of opinion. I’m not backpedaling, you just demonstrated exactly what OP is doing and why it isn’t relevant to the situation.
There are copyleft forms of licenses for all creations in all domains. By using LLM generated content, you’re using that training data.
If you create with an LLM you’re relicensing work under an incompatible license.
Even if you do release under a copy left license, which one do you use? Many of them are incompatible. No matter what your breaking someones terms (or you would if AI companies wherent allowed to get away with murder.)
Again, as someone with publicly released works under copy-left licenses, that is doing anyone who’s contributed to such works, in effort or donation, a tangible disservice.
Unless your work is so fucking innately important as to be above that issue, like improving quality of life for someone who’s disabled, or curing some horrible disease, I don’t wanna fucking hear it.
She is caring, cute, clever and really thoughtful
If you’re ending it, can I get her number? /s
Y’all need to chill it with crucifying anyone and everyone who uses ai. Like any other tool it depends on how it’s used. (If you can put aside the environmental factors cause a single person using it is not going to even scratch the surface of how much companies are)
As someone with ADHD, it’s an amazing way to organize thoughts and to destill ideas into actual writing. And before you go on about how you can do that without ai, yes you can, but it requires someone to sit down with you and help you through the executive functioning process that I don’t have. Would you be willing to spend that time and become her brain’s crutch?
Before you do anything drastic, talk to her, figure out what she uses it for, how it helps her process. Don’t blanket dismiss it cause it’s ai.
Of course I won’t break up with her. I want to support her with her work but I don’t feel like her work is genuine. And the issue is I am not good at lying or acting.
So when she talks about the things she did I can’t help myself and say “you could’ve done that by yourself”. She claims she doesn’t use it for everything but I saw the chats.
I know I sound like a jerk but this is important to me. I will probably try to ignore her use of AI and support her regardless.
