The Artificial 'Intelligence'

or the Dehumanisation

I recently posted a message on my YouTube channel explaining why I had deleted all my previous community posts. Currently, so-called AI (artificial intelligence) is being used everywhere in social media and very often users are not explicitly asked whether they agree to this additional programme using users' posts for its own purposes. In the video section there is an option to switch off this function, in the community section it is not clear whether it is used and there is accordingly no selection function. It is therefore up to the user to think about it and possibly restrict its use.

When my brother saw my post and the disappearance of my previous posts, he wanted to know more about my decision and I decided to write this blog post on the subject.

I'll start with the term AI and the discrepancy this term had for me from the beginning in terms of meaning. I couldn't understand why people agreed without hesitation to assign the attribute of ‘intelligent’ to a machine. Intelligence is an attribute that can only be assigned to living beings that are able to create something completely new out of virtually nothing due to their consciousness and ability to think. The ‘AI’ is a machine that can calculate very quickly and - depending on how much content is stored in it or in the cloud - can also spit out a very wide variety of content and bring this content into different forms. This can be helpful or even necessary for some areas or purposes. And I certainly have nothing against technology, on the contrary, I use a lot of it myself. But AI will never be able to create anything of its own or anything really new, because it has no consciousness. And it cannot create ‘new’, i.e. not pre-programmed, ways of thinking - you could also call them flashes of inspiration. It can only use what has already been made/invented/created by humans. And thus also steal intellectual property from people, or use it for its own purposes.

You could now leave the topic alone and it could simply be part of our new/present reality, just like many other things. Everyone then decides whether it could be valuable to them or not. And here comes the point that makes me doubt. Those - and there are very few of the great human family - who sit at the levers and operate these machines they call AI, have decided to bring this AI more and more intensively into people's everyday lives and mostly in a way that is either hidden or offered in such a way that it seems indispensable, and thus even incorporated into laws (but the latter is another topic).

The area where this predominantly happens is the internet with social media or networks. An area that is used by practically everyone, at least in the younger to middle age groups. But many of the older age groups are now also involved there. These networks are controlled by global players such as Google (with YouTube), Meta (with Facebook and Instagram), X (formerly Twitter) and each has its own AI that is used in each case. All networks are freely available unless a paid premium version is used. This means that anyone can use it, but must agree to so-called terms of use in advance. And I would wager that almost everyone signs these terms of use without seeing them, as they are endlessly long texts that are often very cumbersome and not worded in a user-friendly way, so that it can take hours and days to really get to grips with this topic. I have tried several times, but usually gave up after a while and agreed to the whole thing. Generally speaking, you know what these regulations are about and you resolve not to do anything criminal or unethical on the networks.

These terms of use are renewed from time to time, so they receive an update and consent is required again. However, I only realised that these updates can also contain new features that I may not agree with when a user on Telegram drew our attention to the fact that Instagram had recently installed its AI, which wants to use the content users post there for its own purposes. This means that this AI cuts out pieces (samples) from the posts and creates something new from them. This is a completely new situation that I hadn't expected.

To be very clear: the Insta app now works in this way, and if I don't agree with it, I have to object to it, which is relatively cumbersome. Once you have found the area for this, you have to identify yourself several times and then finally justify why you do not agree to the use of AI. I objected and my reason was: ‘I don't want my handmade artwork (many of my pictures are posted there) to be destroyed by a machine’. This was accepted immediately and my objection was accepted.

This experience made it clear to me that there could be some other intention in the background of these seemingly free public media through the use of AI, which is being added insidiously and more through the back door everywhere. Because it is not necessary to use AI in these media where people just want to talk or share images, texts, music and the like with others.

Google/YouTube has also changed a lot and again, things happen automatically. So my usage behaviour has changed without me changing anything or without being asked. I watch a lot of YouTube videos and a lot of them are in English (the main language on the internet). Suddenly I see that the titles of the videos are in German (my native language), but I don't want that because I want to see the original titles. Some of the translations probably don't correspond to the original, as there are sometimes strange words that don't make sense in German. It's not (yet) the case with all English videos, but there are more and more and I have no way of changing it. The next thing that happened was that even the English videos got a German translation. This means that the original sound could be heard very quietly in the background and the German text was then spoken over it in a computerised voice. I was horrified and switched it off immediately. Later, I saw that I could switch back to the original sound directly in the video under settings.

What bothers me most is that I am not asked if I want to make these changes, it just happens. Some people might decide to do it, but I always want to see and hear real people, because these computerised voices, male and female, are always the same and even if they are able to articulate highs and lows, they are still completely emotionless and cold in a way. They've been stripped of their humanity, so to speak. In my own activities on YouTube, I have the option of switching off AI intervention in my content when I upload a video. However, I have to switch it off first because the default setting says that I allow the AI access. Nowhere in the Community section is it clear whether AI is also used there, but I assume it is because it is present everywhere. But there is no way to change anything there, just like with the titles of the videos. So I've decided not to post anything there anymore, because I want to prevent the AI from using my content for its own purposes.

We can now think a lot about what is behind the massive use of AI in more and more areas of human existence. It started years ago in the area of smart homes, then more and more in the automotive industry in the area of safe driving and much more. Now in the area of social media, ostensibly everything to ‘help’ people, make life ‘more convenient’ and so on. But all this also has the touch of making people more dispensable, more one-sided and more stupid (why learn languages?!). They want to show us that these machines are much smarter and better and faster and more creative.

The idea is slowly emerging that they (whoever they are) want to turn the diversity of human peoples and their many different customs and cultures into a one-size-fits-all... sorry -human being with the help of this ‘intelligence’ that is spreading over everything. This has already been practised with plants, i.e. fruit and vegetables, for example: in the large supermarkets, everything has to have a certain shape, size and appearance, the rest is thrown away. Corners and edges are no longer allowed.

Is it people's turn now? I remember the TV series Starship Enterprise, in which the Borg appeared one day, half-human, half-machine and alien-controlled. And those of the humans who weren't paying attention were assimilated in no time at all and also turned into emotionless, cold-hearted machine-humans. That's the key thing for me: those who fully embrace this AI may also be willing to have a chip inserted so that everything is even easier and faster. And then they are 100% controllable.

© Maike Dorenberg 02/2025