on the 'anti-AI' movement

16/04/2026

I was lurking on r/neocities (as one does) when I came across this one post titled 'Notes to those who hate ai... I've used it for my website bullying isn't ok,' and it reads':

im leaving the Neocities page,people literally hate ai 😭/I'm leaving the reddit because everyone thinks that I use ai/thanks/bye...

The replies under the post are unforgiving to say the least (and for good reasons, I'll get to this later). People are basically commenting the likes of don't care who asked, with someone saying that because the AI harms the environment and local communities, whatever the OP experienced doesn't count as bullying.

A few things here: first, two things can be true. OP can support something immoral while still experiencing bullying for it. I have no idea what OP actually experienced, but if it's anything close to what bullying typically refers to (i.e. relentless harrassment, name calling, doxxing, mean languages, the likes of such), then I don't think it's fair to discount what the OP experiences because they support something immoral, particularly when the mainstream generally supports said immoral thing as well. It would be another story if OP says they use AI particularly because they want to deprive communities of water, but then they'd just be a stupid hater no one wants to spend time arguing with.

Second, the anti-AI movement, particularly in the Indieweb community, has begun to resemble something like a witchunt. This is especially obvious across creative spaces (many of its users joined because they oppose big corp, algorithm, and AI) like the indieweb, substack, whatever, but even on mainstream social media as well. Whenever someone admit to using AI, even if just to help with minor tasks or edits, accusations began to being thrown around of the person wasting water or sucking up to corporations.

But even with the lack of direct evidence, e.g. if a piece of writing looks too polished, a piece of illustration looking too perfect, the same things happen. As an avid user of em-dashes since before the popularity boom of AI, I feel so annoyed everytime I write I have to take care not to lean into my habit of using em-dashes.

Before I get any further, I think now is a good time to establish what my actual view on AI is. I think using AI as a magic code genie or even a search engine is stupid. A lot of my family members are still fascinated with AI and whenever they have a question, they'll just say “let me ask chat gpt", and I find that so fucking cringe.

In part i feel this way because, as argued by many anti-AI-ers, AI has made things too easy. It dulls our capacity at critical thinking or even googling, just because now information (the accuracy of which is questionable) is so easy to obtain. But also, As someone whose education requires me to do a lot of research, source reading, and citations, this level of AI reliance is very stupid to me just because how much I know AI can hallucinate. That's why I generally avoided AI these days, in part because it's really not as smart as people think it is.

Though I do have to admit, and I know my credibility may be severely damaged by this, I still use AI *sparingly*. When I coded this website, especially back when I've just started out, especially to find that single div I missed that fucks up my entire layout among 100+ lines of html, or answering an ultra-specific question that google/forums don't have the answer to. Though, because I know AI is kind of stupid sometimes, I still double check and try to understand the logic of all AI suggestions.

That's what AI is to me; it's not a magic solution to my problems, but something that helps me learn, either directly or through my own process of scrutinising it and figuring out if it's hallucinated another issue. There are forms of AI that I strictly oppose, like AI art (or using AI for creative works in general), 'vibe coding/, or other things that blindly relies on AI with minimal human judgements or inputs. because then what's the point?

But when we look at the general public, most of them probably still view AI with fascination, and are open to adopting it to make their lives easier. They probably are somewhat aware of the negatives of AI, but they either don't care, or don't know enough to care.

I think the arguments pushed forward by those who are staunchly anti-AI has a lot of ground. It defeats the purpose of the indie-web movement, it's environmentally damaging, it scraps small creators' materials, or that you're really just not learning anything by relying on AI. But truth is, you can't accomplish the objectives of a movement, especially when opposing something so mainstream and popular, through what's essentially a witch hunt. I understand some may think this is effective because the indie-web community, or its adjacent communities definitely has a larger share of non-AI users. But the truth is, the vast majority of the world probably still thinks AI is fascinating and is 'the future,' and theres probably a decent chunk within this community that believes so as well.

When we look at historical cases, often when a movement successfully amounts to change, they do so through criticising the issues directly, yes, but this is coupled with appeal to the wider public, garnering sympathy, and making their agenda sounds more palatable. This looks like MLK using peaceful direct action and appealing to Christian values to convince moderates of their cause, or the Woman's Christian Temperance Union using the 'Home Ballot' (that women need to vote to protect their families) to justify women's suffrage, which brought more people under the movement as it's connecting the movement to less radical, and more widely accepted ideas.

And the further problem with this AI witchhunt is that it has begun to alienate people that opposes AI themselves. Because anti-AI-ers are so keen on not engaging with AI or criticising people for using it, and insofar as there's really no proper indicator of AI usage (especially since AI mimics popular writing style because it's literally what they're trained on), people have begun to wrongly accuse people of using AI.

One thing that's very easy to understand is, people usually don't like being criticsed or accused. This usually occurs on a visceral level, meaning, even if the accused knows the accusation makes sense, they will still feel upset, repulsed, and defensive. This is also true when it comes to AI movements. I think even the chronic AI users are probably aware of the negative environmental impact of it, but if they were to be called stupid, inconsider, or, god forbid, genocide-complicit (whether this is actually true or not is not the point), i'm sure whatever reaction you'd get from them will not be very positive, and this will also likely to go on and affect their (and others') view of the movement.

I understand that, when it comes to something so serious and so dire, people would want to press others who support this or make them understand the immorality of their actions. But, truth is, people rarely become educated when they are bullied into it. The anti-AI movement is too harsh, for the lack of a better word. While ethically, this is something to be harsh on, but practically it's just not that effective if the goal of anti-AI-ers is to get more people to adopt their views (which is likely the case cause any efforts to minimise the impact of AI requires a lot of people opting in).

What to do, then? If the goal of the movement is to stop the prolferation of AI, a good starting point is to change to accusatory, moral judgement-y language used. Educate people, instead of accusing people of being uneducated and leaving it at that. Stop giving unfair 'trials' to people you think use AI. I think, overall, it's just a good idea to keep in mind that, witchhunting people online isn't going to get you the changes you want, especially when you're a minority. But, making people like the movement and the people associated with it can go a long way, even though it sounds preformative af.