If you’re anywhere on any Social Media, you might have seen some strange videos or images of an ominous apple sticking it’s tongue out. Maybe you’ve seen other videos of baby fruits eating…themselves? These weird memes are certainly phenomenal—and they are fully AI-generated.
Generative AI is the absence of a human soul trying to recreate what only a human soul can. It is essentially a robot designed to learn patterns and absorb data, whether that’s grammar correction or generating an entire essay from a single prompt. In the past few years, this kind of AI has observed a growth in intelligence—if you could even call it something so humane—so strong that the resources needed to run the AI are running dry.
For AI to collect data and be trained, it needs a huge computer. And as those huge computers excerpt dangerous amounts of power, they need water to cool the system down, or else the heat will lead to damage or a complete meltdown (Oh no! I would never ever want that to happen!). The sheer amount of water AI computer databases and power plants need to function is mind-blowing. The global annual water consumption by AI is projected to reach higher, according to research by Communications of the ACM, “Making AI less thirsty” level “between 4.2 billion and 6.6 billion cubic meters by 2027. This is not the only way AI is stealing from human resources, but it is a major point that I choose to focus on, because it has the most direct effect on the people. Now, when you have this major problem that affects the environment and the people, there’s gonna be protesting.
In this new age of digital life, instead of marching around in a street with signs and speakers, people will make a simple post on social media and call it a day. While it might be less effective, it does a way better job at reaching a much wider audience. Creative social media outlets have seen a large number of artists rebelling against AI “art”, and people expressing their anger surrounding ChatGPT and Google’s AI feature that you just cannot escape.
They criticise how lazy society has become and strongly strike down any argument made about why AI “art” is good. But recently, a flood of AI-generated memes has infiltrated the internet. Italian Brainrot—a series of images of strange animals with names like “Tralalero Tralala” (a shark with shoes on?), or “Tung Tung Tung Sahur” (a disturbing log with a face?)—is the most widespread example of this phenomenon. Brainrot is a term used to describe “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterised as likely to lead to such deterioration,” according to ‘Brain rot’ named Oxford Word of the Year 2024, Oxford
Another example is an image of an apple with a weird face and its tongue out, getting fed apple slices (cannibalism?). These memes are generated by AI and then posted onto multiple meme accounts across social media. There are two main problems I have with these memes: that they’re made with AI, and that the same people who protest against AI love them so much. It seems to me that the anti-AI movement was—for some—just another performative political trend to hop on and then completely abandon months later. People who saw protesting against ChatGPT and AI “art” profusely are now using AI memes, and think that because it makes them laugh, and it can’t do any harm! This excuse that is being made up is extremely hypocritical.
No matter the post, the content, the format, or the purpose, anything generated with AI on a large scale is equally bad. It’s still killing animals, the earth, and sucking resources dry, and just because it gives you a little haha funny moment does not make it okay or excuse it. But do not fret! People are rebelling! A recent surge of anti-AI movements regarding memes has appeared online, involving people re-creating little AI apple babies with their own artwork, and expressing how the disconnect between the viewer and the creator via AI dilutes the sort of thought that is generally put in. So, yes, the youth online still dislikes AI and continues to protest against it, even when it manages to weave itself into memes in a very sneaky way. At the end of the day, generative AI, no matter if it’s funny, easy to use, or convenient, is polluting the earth and ruining creative ability.