In the column Straight Nonsense, columnist Moises Mendez II takes a queer eye to the insanity of straight culture.If there's a piece of news involving AI (or artificial intelligence), I actively choose not to engage because every attempt to implement this technology misunderstands what people actually want and/or need. Earlier this week, my eyes were assaulted with the news of a new development in Hollywood: an AI-generated "actress" named Tilly Norwood that was created by Eline van der Veldens U.K.-based AI production studio, Particle6, which, according to multiple reports, many talent agencies have expressed interest in working with. This fake actress was created using multiple pieces of AI technology, including ChatGPT, to generate a script for a comedic sketch in which she made her debut.The avatar swiftly faced backlash from actual actors. SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union for Hollywood performers, put out a statement condemning Norwood. "To be clear, Tilly Norwood is not an actor, its a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers without permission or compensation, the post reads. It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion, and, from what weve seen, audiences arent interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. See on Instagram The real people behind Tilly released a statement, explaining their side, which you're free to read, but in my opinion, is a bunch of vapid bullshit to save face after being met with the truth: No one is ready to get rid of real actors with real human emotions who we can see, hear, and in some fortunate cases, touch (but not in a weird way through meet-and-greets and such).This thing masquerading as progress is one of the most recent results of tech executives so detached from reality that they believe this is what people want a soulless, doe-eyed, computer-generated piece of nonsense that doesn't solve any issues with Hollywood, but rather exacerbates the many glaring problems. However, Hollywood isn't the only industry attempting to implement AI; it seems as though every day, a new piece of AI technology is being shoved down our throats, claiming to simplify an already simple task with the help of AI. Nobody wants AI actresses; most people wish that the money being spent on creating this garbage be put towards making real movies with real actors. Nobody wants a necklace called Friend with an AI companion to make human connection obsolete, they want more opportunities to form bonds with people. Nobody wants AI to write articles; they want journalists on the ground, developing relationships with sources, uncovering new details, and writing stories with personality and heart. Nobody wants a social media platform solely dedicated to shitty AI-generated content on Sora; they want actual humans making content for the fun of it. The latter is only available to a select few until its release in December, but it will undoubtedly have devastating implications when the general public gets a hold of it and everyone starts creating deepfakes of one another, but hey, who am I to say anything about that? It's not like the president of the United States posted one of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer earlier this week, putting words they never said in their mouth, and adding a sombrero to Jeffries's head.AI is soulless and the complete antithesis of what human creation can be. It plagiarizes and steals work from artists, who are left without commission because, after the machine learns to spit out similar work, people are less inclined to pay for the real thing. This is why I avoid the technology altogether and advise the people in my life not to use it the more it's legitimized by people continuing to use it, the more out-of-touch tech billionaires are inclined to argue for its existence in our everyday lives. These technologies are atrophying our brains, one piece of AI slop or ChatGPT prompt (which could've been a Google search) at a time in addition to depleting resources. Earlier this year, researchers at MIT "estimated that a ChatGPT query consumes about five times more electricity than a simple web search," but Noman Bashir, a fellow with the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium and a postdoc at CSAIL, said, "The ease-of-use of generative AI interfaces and the lack of information about the environmental impacts of my actions means that" users "don't have much incentive to cut back on [their] use of generative AI.My aversion to AI is not only because of the insipid garbage it generates, but also the long-lasting environmental impact of the enormous data centers being created across the U.S. and the world. One of the most controversial facilities to gain the most publicity in the past year is Elon Musk's xAI data center, located in Memphis, Tennessee. Earlier this year, More Perfect Union spoke with people who live close to the data center and the toll these data centers are taking on their physical health. - YouTube www.youtube.com The (allegedly) unpermitted temporary gas turbines that xAI uses, Time reports, "have been pumping out a level of emissions that, according to environmentalists, is exacerbating the health issues of an area already crushed by decades of pollution" due to the increase in nitrogen dioxide being pumped into the air. The publication spoke with an academic primary care physician in South Memphis that said, "These emissions pose the greatest risk to our citys most vulnerable residents, including children, the elderly, and individuals with respiratory conditions like asthma and COPD.But getting people to care about underserved communities is difficult, even with faces attached to the issue as seen in the MPU video. This individualistic society we find ourselves in today promotes this idea of, "Well, it's not happening to me, so I'll just continue to use this tool and I won't care about the human cost until it affects me directly." We've seen it happen with the climate crisis, the genocide that is currently taking place in Gaza, and now with AI. It won't take that long on any social media platform to come across a piece of AI-generated content, though spotting it now is becoming increasingly more difficult because of the machine learning's increased capabilities. My own true wish is that AI has the same lifespan in the cultural zeitgeist as NFTs, but it seems that we are lightyears beyond that point. Now, we have to look back at a world where socially inept tech bros force their ideas onto the world and are given stupid amounts of money to carry them out with or without the public's consent. I've held this hatred of AI and the toll it's taking on humans (whether they decide to acknowledge it or not) for years now, but Tilly Norwood pushed me past my breaking point (after she pushed me down the stairs did that work? Is she canceled? No? OK, never mind). Guess I'll just keep screaming into the existential void that is 2025 and beyond.Moises Mendez II is a staff writer at Out magazine. Follow him on Instagram @moisesfenty.Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit out.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. We welcome your thoughts and feedback on any of our stories. Email us at voices@equalpride.com. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of Out or our parent company, equalpride.