What side are you on?
Is AI good or bad?
Written By Allison Mula
July 06, 2026
I’ve always been interested in technology, particularly the ways in which it can be used to extend human creativity. I’ve always appreciated how some technologies allow for new forms of expression. Like when I started using Nomad and Blender to create 3D objects, or learned how to use animation software for poster presentations and info dissemination (before it was cool). So, when generative AI came out I thought nothing of it to jump in and see what it could do. At that point, it felt very different. I guess we could say that it was in its infancy phase. But it has grown since then; it is in its adolescence. Brute plowing through, testing its boundaries, and seeing how far it can go. But even that description – brought into analogy with a pre-pre-frontally developed being – seems hardly critical enough because there are grown-ass people behind the the AI apparatus and they aren’t teenagers (Doge excluded obvi). I am referring to the founders of the primary AI companies, the pushers of the techno-theocracy, the tech oligarchs. No, they are not children, they are fully developed adults (?). And unlike the machines they push at us, they can see what is happening, the communities that they plop their data centers in the middle of; the ones who clearly say that they don’t want the noise, heat, pollution, and industry brought into their worlds, brought into their backyards, brought into their drinking water; it’s the founders who choose to ignore them. Its them saying we don’t have a choice, that it is inevitable. They know better than us and want to see how far they can go before being stopped.
I came across a post the other day on Instagram of a scholar who was expressing her frustrations about being pressured to use AI in academics and the ethical considerations of that. Beneath the post was a comment from a scholar I admire, accusing the poster of holding a ‘privileged’ position. They argued that denying people access to AI is a kind of epistemological injustice because they and others of the global majority have begun to use AI to translate their academic work into English, and without such technology, those who do not speak English (at all or as a primary language) are denied the opportunity to communicate their lived experiences and perspective. This tension stopped me in my tracks. I guess I like my injustices to be less blurred. Its more comfortable to have a solid ethical line drawn. Don’t get me wrong, I am a line jumper; I move with the ethics as they are revealed; I do not feel locked into majority thinking. I’m open to changing as I learn. However, what happens when multiple perspectives may hold the truth? How do we proceed in such cases? I know that there are environmental injustices as a result of the data centers required for AI; I know that women and children have had their likeness made into pornographic images without their consent and plastered all over the internet; I know that these companies have given their technology to be used in drones that bomb children’s schools, hunt journalists and doctors, and carry out surveillance on citizens and potential resistance groups; I know that epistemological injustice does not just occur in academics, it occurs when a person’s account of their experience is denied, like in a genocide, and similarly when an occupying force denies people the opportunity to know of a potential life beyond what they have been given and forced to endure; I know that AI that generates text from one language into another or creates visuals for a presentation must first draw from all the writers and artists whose work it has subsumed without permission, without credit, without compensation. For every thought it pulls into form, it must sift through the ideas of millions before.
But how can voices be heard when we can’t understand them? First, it should be understood that the dominance of the English language in scientific communication is a racist condition. It serves as a gatekeeping mechanism in which participation in the academic world requires information to be rendered in English. Of course, articles and books are published in languages other than English, but to pretend as though the exposure of this knowledge to the scientific or broader academic worlds is somehow equivalent would be disingenuous. Beyond the institution of education, how do those who experience genocide and violent occupation call for change if we cannot understand them? How can they tell their stories? How can they vibe code apps that allow them to communicate off the grid? How do they form cross-border communities? Some would say that it is a privilege to publish, but this is not a coffee table book; it is lived experience, it is storytelling, it is revolution building.
Does this mean that it is less about a privileged perspective as much as it is about a standpoint perspective? Because the reasons for not-AI are many. However, AI (in theory) can also reduce suffering and support equality. Beyond the translation of complex texts into English, AI has also discovered new uses for medications that have led to medical breakthroughs. It has the potential to bring medical expertise to corners of the world that would not otherwise have access. It has the potential to provide a literal voice for people who cannot otherwise communicate with the world. It has the potential to make paralyzed individuals mobile if they so please. It has the potential to prevent self-harm, reduce loneliness, and provide emotional support when none is accessible.
Do you see what I mean? So then why have we fallen into the trap of extremes again? Why does it always have to be all or nothing? This is good or this is bad. Its complex, and most things aren’t one or the other. Many people I know say that all AI is bad, but these are people who don’t seem to actually need it for anything. They aren’t in the sciences, they don’t have disabilities, and don’t appear to be particularly concerned with the idea of nuance.... I don’t think AI is inevitable, I think it is what we make of it. It has become a tool to further the division of have and have nots. So do we want all of the have to be the ones to know how to work with it? Wouldn’t we want those fight for the marginalized to also know how the tech works. How can we fight an entity on a battlefield of which we are not prepared to engage on. How can we understand exactly what it is they are doing if we don’t understand the system? I think its a mistake to make AI use immoral. I think that leaves those with morals as sitting ducks for what is to come. We should be learning every advance as it emerges, advocating for public ownership of our creativity, of thoughtful legislation, of planned growth. I think it’s intellectually lazy to say if its bad we can’t take part in it. We have to take part in it so that we can monitor it, recognize what it does and has the potential to do. The ‘bad guys’ would love us not to learn how to use it. How to create open source access, how to track the origin of information it is subsumming.
I hope you are not looking for a conclusion here... I don’t know what I think. But I do know, that I can’t speak freely about it with most people because most people can’t hear beyond their own decisions. So, I am just going to keep thinking about it... exploring the different perspectives, and learning what people living different lives than I do think about it.