she/they; my corner of the internet with a bit of peace and quiet; staying here implies accepting my cookies; currently obsessed with: Mass Effect; BG3 lives rent-free in my mind; writing things on @nyxeleniel
It's been a year since I started my deep dive into the rabbit hole of AI to understand how it works. Let me just say that I work in IT, so I got a bit of background knowledge and a basic understanding of things.
I just changed the profile pic as well as the header on my second account because both had been generated with AI. Yes, you read that right.
When I started with AI I didn't know better (which is not an excuse but an explanation) - but I do now. And it pains me to see that, although it's been just one or two instances, I used stuff like that just to have a "pretty" avatar.
The implications of using AI for creative works like art or writing are massive. Not only do we derive ourselves from learning new things and creating things with our own minds, but we actively turn our brains to mush by using it. Not to mention flooding the internet with AI slop and drowning everyone else in it.
It's remarkable, even to myself, how I went from someone embracing AI at the beginning of 2025, paying for OpenAIs subscription (Was it worth it? No.) to absolutely despising everything that has the label AI slapped on it in early 2026. Apart from the blatant theft of creative works (which is a massive oversight in the technology sector due to greed and no respect for artists whatsoever, and also heavily downplayed by many!), here are the things I want, no, need you to know about AI - no matter if you're pro or against the use of AI in creative works.
Get yourself some coffee, tea, or whatever tickles your fancy, and sit tight - it's gonna be along one.
CNs: Environmental Issues, Politics, Technology, Capitalism, Mental Health
AI data centres are polluting the environment in a never before seen scale
Data centres need a shit ton load of water and electricity for their hardware to work: racks over racks of high end computers line the isles of those halls. The massive amount of electricity needed for the computing power has to come from somewhere. So as not to let everybody sit in darkness, old technologies like coal or atomic energy are being reintroduced. At some places, the companies behind the centres are building their own power stations, using materials like gas or diesel as fuel. The water often comes from deep underground, being pumped up to use for energy or cooling. After it's been used, it gets dumped into nature again, now enriched with toxins and whatnot. Not only does it lower the water level, making water scarce for locals, it attacks an already limited source on our planet: fresh water.
Use of AI makes your brain rot - literally
It feels like every day another study shows up, talking about how the extensive use of AI deteriorates our brains. Using AI for tasks such as creative writing, writing your essay for uni, relying on it for your work or even letting it plan your next travel itinerary: your brain needs to work less so why keep the little cells in your skull alive when they're no longer needed? One study showed a reduced skill to think critically and to find solutions to problems on your own. Which, in all fairness, is a skill many people have lacked even before AI but it's getting worse the more we use AI to think for us.
AI slop in - AI slop out
You know Ouroboros? It's a snake from ancient mythology, biting its own tail and therefore creating an endless loop. That is the same thing that happens when AI images or text is created and then uploaded to the internet: it's created by AI (trained on human works), uploaded online, gets scrapped by some AI agent again, finds its way into training material and then what? Right, AI gets trained on AI slop. And so on and so on, until all we get is data garbage. With this, AI is made even worse than it is now - it's like an echo chamber: the worst parts like bias are replicated and come back tenfold.
AI Chatbots are not your therapist, nor your best friend
This part is quite personal. I've used ChatGPT (GPT 5) in early 2025 when it was new and exciting. (Thank you ADHD...) I used it for so many things, trying everything at least once, which means I also used it to sort my thoughts, speak to it when I was down, when I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone. I was in a hard place and in this moment it felt good to have somebody "listen". But in retrospect, I see now that it - while not worsening my situation - it also didn't truly help. I was frozen in my status quo. It encouraged me that it was okay how I felt. It always, without a doubt, encouraged me in my feelings and validated me. Even when the thoughts go dark, it validates you. You simply have to tell the bot to be a listener and not give any solutions - and it will readily embrace the darkness with you. AI bots are not your therapist or friend, they have no emotions, no emotional understanding. They may help with sorting thoughts but that's about it. I repeat: AI ChatBots do not replace friends, family or a therapist! There already have been instances of people dying because they sought emotional refuge in a chat bot. (Which in truth is just another symptom of a crumbling society and has deeper roots but that's another whole ass topic.)
And that's about it, I think. I had another point on this list but my clever brain forgot again but I may add it as an edit later on if it comes back to me. Ah, wait, yes, there it is! Ha, not so clever at hiding things from me after all, brain.
AI is not intelligent and is - in fact - not AI at all
What we call AI in an everyday context (and I feel like a broken record when I say this) is not AI. We talk about LLMs, large language models. ChatGPT by OpenAI, Claude Sonnet by Anthropic, LeChat by Mistral, Gemini by Google... those are all LLMs. In easy terms: it's based on mathematical calculations. The model has learned (training data!) in which combination words appear and how often. Your prompt is analysed by the model and based on this it calculates the statistically most probable answer. It does a lot more than that in reality but it all breaks down to a hard coded software which is - like every single software - maths at its core. It acts only in the confines of its code. Just like a chess computer analyses the pieces on a board and evaluates the most probable and logical next step. And image generating AI bots, like Veo or Nano Banana by Google, act kind of the same, calculating the next logical step without any influx of emotional reasoning.
If AI bots feel real to you or AI images/videos seem astounding: think about why that is. Is it because AI is capable of astonishing creative work and deep empathy? Or is it because this AI was trained on human interactions, human emotions, human art? Because it is simply imitating it and replicating it in a sterile fashion?
Some final words
I'd like to add here that not every AI is bad. Intelligent systems and especially LLMs have been a part of the science community for decades already, helping to analyse huge amounts of data or helping to make language translations truly good and accessible for everyone (looking at you, Deepl!). The state in which AI models are right now is terrifying, even for someone like me who knows a lot about the topic already. The development of new technologies has always been a fast growing part of human civilisation but the emergence of AI bots, agents and other models in the past 5 years has made technology make a tremendous step forward - only without us. Human morality and ethics are left behind and the first self-evolving models emerge (see OpenClaw aka Moltbot). I think it's time we take a step back and evaluate our own behaviour towards AI. I'm all for embracing change and new technologies, but not for the cost of creativity, morale, and our little blue marble. We've damaged earth and each other enough already, it's time to stop.
Links and Resources
Here are some links I used as resources (so I don't have to write entirely from memory) and for you to dive deeper into the topic:
"The hidden impacts of AI data centres on water, climate and future power costs" (10th February 2026, Daily Maverick, South Africa) https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-02-10-the-hidden-impacts-of-ai-data-centres-on-water-climate-and-future-power-costs/
"Are these AI prompts damaging your thinking skills?" (20th December 2025, BBC, UK) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd6xz12j6pzo
"AI is quietly poisining itself and pushing models towards collapse - but there's a cure" (23rd January 2026, ZDNET, USA) https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-is-poisoning-itself-model-collapse-cure/
"AI Slop Produces Second-Order Mental Health Harm Due To The Therapeutic Slop Feedback Loop" (2nd February 2026, Forbes, USA) https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2026/02/02/ai-slop-is-harming-mental-health-chats-due-to-the-rapidly-expanding-therapeutic-slop-feedback-loop/
"Moltbot Gets Another New Name, OpenClaw, And Triggers Security Fears And Scams" (30th January 2026, Forbes, USA) https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronschmelzer/2026/01/30/moltbot-molts-again-and-becomes-openclaw-pushback-and-concerns-grow/
Adding this very intense youtube video as well, which was such a massive wake-up call for me last year:
This post has been written entirely without the help of any LLM aside from Deepl (English isn't my first language). It is the result of over 3 hours of writing and researching frenzy which my brain cooked up instead of doing the smutty, brain rot fic writing I opened my laptop for in the first place. The brain wants what the brain wants or something like that.
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people who read other people's fanfics and see themselves as fanfic writers' "customers" may be one of the most unpleasant people you'll encounter in fandom space.
as a fanfic writer, no, I do not write for you. I write for me. I just post my stuff online for people to read, but that's an act of kindness, it's not "me trying to please you". if you like what I write and if you support me and are kind to me, then I appreciate you. from the bottom of my heart.
but if you don't like what I write, that is fine too. that just means my works are not for you (well, they are for me, the writer. I write for my own enjoyment first and foremost), you can quietly leave, find something else to read. or, better yet, write what you want to read yourself.
you are not fanfic writers' "customers". you read their works for free because they're kind enough to share their works for free. you're reading someone else's hobby. if you keep being rude and entitled to fanfic writers, one day you'll end up with no fics to read, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself.
for the hundredth time, treat fanfic writers and fan artists with respect, or stay quiet.
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Mass Effect is one of my favorite franchises of all time, but it can be so difficult at times to reckon with the fact that as a female gamer, they were simply not made with me in mind. And, ultimately, it suffers for it.
Ironically, the gender gap in the ME trilogy especially apparent when I recommend the games to a male friend. I finally talk them into playing it, and they will, more often than not, have absolutely nothing at all to say about the female characters (or lack thereof). Wandering through the games, you're bombarded with a diverse universe full of unique-looking aliens- but male aliens. Asari are the only female aliens you meet beyond Tali and a couple other female Quarians, until ME3, where we get Eve and Nyreen in the Omega DLC. Which means for two (and a half, let's be honest) games in the franchise, every Turian, Salarian, Krogan, Batrarian, Drell, Hanar, Vorcha, Elcor, and Volus is a male. But what is even more striking than this atrocious worldbuilding oversight is that, handing the games to your average male fan, they barely notice. It escapes them entirely as something worth mentioning. They don't perceive the empty echoes of the female voices we aren't hearing, of the other halves of alien populations completely unrepresented. It's as if the default setting of the world, fictional and not, is male.
Asari- the primary female voices in the game- are poorly written. We know this. An entire race of biotic-wielding, technologically-advanced aliens with lifespans in the centuries and incredibly rich culture and technology, and the most we see of them in the entire trilogy is as strippers and occasional mercenaries. Liara, Samara, Aria and Benezia break this mold, but not without their own flavors of sexualization. After all, Benezia still dies in what is akin to Turian fetishwear under the control of Saren. Her favorite color was yellow, remember?
But beyond Asari strippers, skin-tight Cerberus uniforms, and comically sexualized robots- all valid topics, but talked to death at this point- I truly believe the most astounding, hollow, and disheartening result of this casual misogyny is the Krogan.
The storyline of the Krogan cannot be emancipated from the concept of birth. An entire species near-sterilized, a war crime excused away for the greater good. The Krogan story IS the Genophage, and the horrifying explanations used by those in power to excuse atrocity. And for two entire games, not once are we ever shown what the Genophage has done to Krogan women. Not societally, physiologically, or psychologically. They are conveniently segregated away in briefly-mentioned "female camps," while the men discuss the horrors of a war crime that affects birthing rates. It takes until the final installment of the series to show you one female Krogan (who didn't even get her own model, they just covered her so you wouldn't notice) and to mention the absolutely devastating toll that a cultural pandemic of stillbirths, abuse, and chronic infertility-caused sickness can have on a population. Eve is a fantastic character. Truly. But after two whole games of the Genophage being such a critical cultural touchstone for so much of the galaxy, and so many player choices depending on it, it's incredibly difficult for this omission of perspective to be remedied by a few nuanced lines in the med bay.
On the other hand, I think about the Rachni a lot. The so-called ancient enemy of the Krogan people, the foe that led to them being uplifted by the Salarians (and then, ultimately, discarded by them) in the first place. A massive amount of pre-game lore is devoted to a culture that, interestingly enough, speaks to the player through a queen. In fact, the Rachni queen is one of the first female alien NPCs you encounter in the entire trilogy. And as you encounter her, she speaks of songs of mourning. Not for her, but for her children.
You are offered the chance to spare her twice, once in ME1 and again in ME3. Both times, she has been used for her control of her hive, her children, and the potential army that can be bred out of her. Given the choice to free or kill her, many argue she's too dangerous to be kept alive, her species too volatile to be left to reproduce unchecked. An eerily familiar narrative, echoed by the Krogan, creating very poignant foil to me. A species struggling to give birth, and another, their supposed enemy, constantly being taken advantage of for it. It is a struggle of mothers, being commodified by men, and everyone is losing.
I wonder what narrative depths this series could have discovered in the tragedies of the Krogan and the rich cultures of other alien civilizations if they had considered, even for a second, that female voices could support a story where male voices simply cannot. What would we have learned about Salarian women, and their opinions on fertilization regulations favoring male offspring? About Turian women in the line of duty and their place in the hierarchy? Does the Batarian caste system have a bias on the basis of sex?
Obviously, there is nothing that can be done about the erasure and treatment of women in a game series over a decade old. But, I do believe it can be used as an example going forward to show how cultural and environmental storytelling is genuinely made worse by the oversight of female voices. All that to say, I love this universe and these games. Sometimes, it's just difficult to remember that we were only given half a galaxy to truly appreciate.
Not to be a bitch but sometimes people engage with fiction in the most boring way possible, and nowhere is this clearer than in videogames. Like what you mean you hate a character just because they were kind of abrasive when speaking to the player character? "They were mean to me" and it didn't occur to you to wonder why? Like, what might their attitude toward you reveal about the world? About the social dynamics within it? About their own perspectives and backgrounds and personalities? Does it even occur you to ask? Would you only have liked them if they bowed to your presence and talked about how great you are? Like I'm sorry but you're so boring. How boring fiction would be if it cathered to you
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I was looking for references and stumbled across a series of paintings from 1930s by Soviet painter Alexander Samokhvalov called "The young women of metro construction"
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