Thoughts on Every Industry’s New Favorite Buzzword—
Wrote a final research paper for my class on New Media, and ironically ended up with a thesis about how I dislike arguably the most prevalent form of it: Generative Artificial Intelligence, or GenAI.
I attended a conference for the first time ever in June — film or entertainment-related conferences are not an especially common phenomenon. There were so many cool industry people and so many interesting discussions about the current state of the media industry and how many different pathways you can take within it, but infused into all those conversations were mentions of AI and how it’s becoming an unavoidable part of conducting business. The strangest part to me, though, was that nobody in the conference acknowledged the consequences of frequent AI use: not the detrimental environmental cost, not the experimental stage of its development, and most shockingly for a conference filled with young media-industry hopefuls, not the sequestering of creativity, orginality, and job replacement.
I know I am in a semi-radical position to argue my point of this final college research paper, and I am open to being disagreed with or hearing out others. One of my most environmentally-conscious and educated friends spoke to me recently about her job, which encourages her to use AI for menial tasks so that she can spend more time focusing on the larger needs of her projects. She was actively grappling with how she felt about her own use of these tools. I’ve heard arguments that GenAI can achieve medical advancements not thought possible before its development. As someone with a history or certain terminal illnesses within my family, that’s obviously intriguing, though a point I’d be curious to fact-check myself more. And trust when I say I’m not anti-technology; I find new tech fascinating and am very aware of the day-to-day efficiency benefits AI can provide. I just don’t think they’re worth it, and after what I discovered through writing this paper, I’m somewhat shocked anyone does.
So I’m posting it here for anyone’s curiosity! PS: This paper was finished in May 2025, information may be outdated if reading at a later date.
Update re. June 2025: There is a way to not automatically get an AI summary from a Google search! Not one Google will tell you, though. Add “-AI” to the end of any search. Gemini won’t show!
REFERENCES
Akers, Torey. DeviantArt and Midjourney deny wrongdoing in copyright infringement lawsuit over in AI image generators, May 10, 2024. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/05/10/deviantart-midjourney-stable-diffusion-artificial-intelligence-image-generators.
Banh, Leonardo, Frederik Möller, Gero Strobel and Thorsten Schoormann. “Exploring Generative Artificial Intelligence: A Taxonomy ...” 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2024. https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/fa9a6175-9ff2-4ad4-868e-fec5127cd430/content.
Belci, Theo. Leaked: The names of more than 16,000 non-consenting artists allegedly used to train Midjourney’s AI, January 4, 2024. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/01/04/leaked-names-of-16000-artists-used-to-train-midjourney-ai.
“ChatGPT.” Computer software. OpenAI, May 13, 2024. https://chatgpt.com/.
Chow, Andrew R. “Elon Musk’s Memphis AI Data Center Raises Pollution Concerns.” Time, September 17, 2024. https://time.com/7021709/elon-musk-xai-grok-memphis/.
Jacobs, Harrison. “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Continues to Completely Miss the Point with Ai Art.” ARTnews.com, April 10, 2025. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/opinion/openai-ceo-sam-altman-ai-art-generators-1234738240/.
“Impacts of Groundwater Withdrawals for Irrigation.” Student Materials, February 29, 2024. https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/food_supply/student_materials/1108.
“Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.” EPA, November 2024. https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator#results.
Marwala, Tshilidzi. "Never Assume That the Accuracy of Artificial Intelligence Information Equals the Truth," United Nations University, UNU Centre, July 18, 2024. https://unu.edu/article/never-assume-accuracy-artificial-intelligence-information-equals-truth.
Quadros, Larissa Scherrer de. “Ai’s Climate Crisis: Are We Burning the Planet to Feed Our Digital Brains?” INDEED, March 24, 2025. https://www.indeed-innovation.com/the-mensch/ais-climate-crisis-are-we-burning-the-planet-to-feed-our-digital-brains/#:~:text=Energy%20analysts%20calculate%20that%20all,transportation%2C%20manufacturing%2C%20or%20agriculture.
“Removing Gemini.” Google Chrome Community, January 15, 2025. https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/318805163?hl=en&sjid=8575899065071930774-NA.
“Terms of Use.” Policies, OpenAI, December 11, 2024. https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use.
Wells Fargo Securities, "Summary of GenAI demand forecast," MarketWatch. Accessed April 23, 2025.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ai-could-demand-a-shocking-amount-of-electricity-check-out-this-chart-e91e306d
Wilkins, Joe. “Sam Altman Admits That Saying ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ to CHATGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power.” Futurism, April 19, 2025. https://futurism.com/altman-please-thanks-chatgpt.
Zewe, Adam. “Explained: Generative AI’s Environmental Impact.” MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, November 9, 2023. https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117.
