I Don't Want It But I Need It: A.I. Literacy

“Grace” called me last week. In a clear, kind voice, she welcomed me to my new health insurance plan. Then she let me know she’s an automated messenger.

I hung up immediately. Communicating with an A.I. makes my temperature skyrocket. (One just reported that because of line 613-2, it denied coverage of my husband’s blood tests.)

I like to focus on learning nature’s cycles and living as much as possible by the energy, water and food offered within my watershed, my bioregion. I try to remember to say thanks for having food and shelter today.

Then, I read that the Trump Administration plans to replace the federal workers fired by Elon Musk…with A.I.s.

My humanness and survival feel threatened.

I don’t want it, but I need A.I. literacy.

WHAT IS A.I.?

When a computer performs tasks typically associated with human intelligence—like learning, reasoning, problem-solving and decision-making—we call it artificial intelligence (A.I.).

Google search engines employ A.I. So do recommendation systems like Amazon and YouTube, virtual assistants like Siri and self-driving cars. In medicine, A.I. can diagnosis illness and create drugs. Students now call on A.I. like ChatGPT to summarize books and write their papers. School systems use A.I. to design individualized lesson plans for children—and to observe what they write and read. A.I. can translate from one language to another. Financial systems apply A.I. in risk management, fraud detection and customer service. The military uses A.I. to gather intelligence, analyze vast datasets, automate tasks and improve effectiveness in warfare.

A.I.s can monitor wildlife, detect poaching activities, analyze acoustic data and images to map wildlife habitats and plan conservation. They can analyze vast datasets to predict climate change’s impacts on ecosystems and optimize energy consumption.

SO, WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS WITH A.I.?

Between three and 27% of the time, A.I.s “hallucinate:” they generate incorrect or misleading information.

Every A.I. activity requires manufacturing the user’s computer—and a power grid, access networks and data storage centers. Every A.I. activity involves engaging the global super-factory of energy-guzzling, water-guzzling, toxic waste-emitting, ecosystem-disrupting steps. By 2030, AI data centers’ energy demands will quadruple.

Humans lose jobs.

Some people forecast that we’ll see A.I.’s “total domination” by 2027 or 2028.

Whenever anyone engages an A.I. we lose a bit of ability to wrestle with ideas and emotions. We lose a bit of humanness.

WHAT IS A.I. LITERACY?

It’s when you can name at least five activities in your day that engage an A.I.

It’s when you know:

· How to do the job you want an A.I. to do…yourself.

· How to communicate with an A.I. without getting infuriated.

· How much screen-time you spend per day…compared to how much time you spend with living creatures.

· The infrastructure involved in any A.I. activity. The power grid, extractions, smelting, water use, toxic waste and intercontinental shipping involved in manufacturing individual computers, access networks and data storage centers. The impacts to public health and wildlife from mining the copper, gold, lithium, manganese, nickel, quartz, tin and other elements necessary for every computer. The water required to make transistors electrically conductive. The access networks required for a user to engage an A.I. The raw materials involved in manufacturing a data storage center’s computers and cooling systems; the amount of electricity and water required to operate a data storage center’s cooling systems; the impacts of a data center’s electricity and water use on neighbors’ electricity and water. The ecological and public health impacts of discarding computers and batteries at the end of their lives.

· The supply chain of at least two substances involved in manufacturing your device.

· The location of the data storage center nearest you and the amount of water it consumes every day.

· Municipal and federal regulations regarding A.I.

· What would you add to this list?

HOW DO WE PROTECT OURSELVES—AND OUR DATA?

Learn how to raise a child, grow one vegetable, heal wounds and illnesses, tend to the dying and bury the dead…without an A.I.

Read The Costs of Data Centers to Our Communities—and How to Fight Back, written by Kairos Fellowship and MediaJustice.

Consider digital disobedience, as described by British journalist Carole Cadwalladr in her April 8, 2025 TED talk, “This is What a Digital Coup Looks Like.”

Avoid cryptocurrency. If you have cryptocurrency, expect no protections. (The Trump administration is disbanding a Justice Department unit that investigated cryptocurrency crimes; it criticizes the Biden administration as too aggressive against the fast-growing industry.)

Make schools and school buses places where kids can actually interact with each other—and beware the commercial tech that vies for their attention.

Backup your contact lists and any writing you’re working on…on paper.

Beware of mixing reality, fantasy and enterprise…in creating a “a digital afterlife.”

Try impact investing: buy one share of a corporation. Shareholders have rights and influence that customers do not hold.

Start a mutual aid group.

Keep an eye on Pope Leo XIV, who said that another industrial revolution is taking place in the field of artificial intelligence, and that it will “pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”

Listen to economist Catherine Austin Fitts. For real solutions, she says we need to face our participation in our society’s mess, forgive ourselves and call on Divine Intelligence.

Check out Filip Balunovic’s report of what’s happening in Serbia. (Access the NY Times online via your public library.)

Would you buy me a cup of tea each month?