The advent of a host of chatty bots has made clearer to us the outlines of the world we now live in. And the picture is not pretty.
It’s common cause that there are privacy concerns around the use of generative AI.
Along with many other people offering advice on the subject, I’ve written a whole blog post about it: Privacy and Generative AI – what you need to know.
These concerns should be part of everyone’s thinking processes when working with Gen AI tools.
That’s why the Introduction to AI training that Safe Hands offers devotes a fair amount of time to the topic of privacy. But when we get to that part of the training, people look puzzled and say: “But we give our data to companies like Google all the time? What’s the difference with AI?”
There’s a good answer to that, in that very blog post:
We’ve been more-or-less-voluntarily giving personal information to Big Tech for years. Now, we’re not just giving information to Big Tech – we’re giving information to tools that Big Tech has made, and which are essentially black boxes. There’s a lot we don’t know about how these models work, and a lot we can’t predict. In journalism trainer Adam Tinworth’s memorable phrase: “we’re in the toddler-with-a-chainsaw stage of AI adoption”. Caution is the sensible thing here.
We’ve been doing this for years
There’s something else at play though – just because we’ve become used to giving information to platforms like Google or Facebook doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. We are all more-or-less aware that we are making a deal in which we surrender our personal data to get convenience. And we sort-of know that the companies use our data to generate revenue by serving us advertising that is targeted specifically at us.
Mega YouTuber PewDiePie has been on a mission to “de-Google” his life and has a good rant on the subject (go to minute 2:30 in this 25-minute video):
Have you ever thought why browsers [like Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge] are free to begin with? Why does Microsoft want you to use their browser so goddamn badly? Why do they make it free for you? Could it be cuz they track everything you do online and sell or trade your data? What? What do you mean, they don’t make this out of the goodness of their heart? You’re telling me Google isn’t just a trillion dollar charity?
He ain’t wrong about the way in which we are exploited.
Putting that thought together with the AI learning journey I’ve been on has brought me to this realisation: AI is just the very new, very visible, in-our-faces manifestation of the trade-offs we are making when using our phones and PCs.
It’s not just Big Tech malevolence
A similar thought process applies to the environmental impact of generative AI. It’s true that data centres (which house the mega-computers that power Gen AI) consume electricity and water, and it’s true that these inputs are growing exponentially.
But heres’ the thing: when we do anything online, a data centre somewhere uses electricity and water, and that’s been going on for years. Every time I check LinkedIn or send a WhatsApp or answer an email, a server somewhere has switched on some lights and slurped some water. (Technically-minded readers – I know these are oversimplifications!)
Then there’s society at large
People everywhere are using these tools for medical and emotional support.
A moving article in the Guardian describes how a kidney transplant patient in China uses AI for medical advice because the health system just doesn’t meet her needs:
Every few months, my mother… fills her backpack with a change of clothes, a stack of medical reports and a few boiled eggs to snack on. Then, she takes a 90-minute ride on a high-speed train and checks into a hotel in… Hangzhou. At 7am the next day, she lines up with hundreds of others to get her blood taken… In the afternoon, when the lab results arrive, she makes her way to a specialist’s clinic. She gets about three minutes with the doctor. Maybe five, if she’s lucky. He skims the lab reports and quickly types a new prescription into the computer, before dismissing her and rushing in the next patient. Then, my mother packs up and starts the long commute home.
It’s no wonder that this woman says DeepSeek is her best health adviser. And it’s no wonder that in a breakdown of how people have been using AI in 2025, just under a third say they are turning to it for personal and professional support.
As someone quoted in the original Harvard Business Review article (paywalled) points out: “Where I’m from, in South Africa, mental healthcare barely exists. Unfortunately, data safety is not a concern when your health is deteriorating, and survival is the morning agenda.”
If health systems everywhere are failing people, who is to blame them for turning to the friendly, apparently caring app on their phone?
What we are learning
Just as the advent of AI has laid bare the rapaciousness of Big Tech and the environmental cost of our digital lives, it has shown us the ways in which societies everywhere are failing their citizens.
I generally try to end posts like these with a “thing you can do” but I don’t have much to offer. The problem is huge and systemic.
All I would say is that it seems to me we all need to find ways to step away from our screens and start living in the real world again. Only there will we find ways to make the world a better place.
Main picture: Albert Stoynov, Unsplash
Other things I have written
Privacy and Generative AI – what you need to know – I’ve done some research on the question of privacy and Generative AI. My findings and thoughts…
Gen AI and climate change – what’s the story? – I’ve written about Gen AI and climate change before, from the point of view of what the tech companies say about it. Now, I’m looking at it from the ground up…
How can I help you make order from chaos?
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