I was lying in bed at night before I went to sleep, scrolling through social media, which the majority of the people on this planet are doing, the exact same thing at the exact same time. I was on Bluesky, which is kind of like X, looking for people to follow. I’m really into AI right now, and there is a lot to learn, I’ll tell you that right now, so I just typed AI into the search bar.

What came back was memes about how bad AI is, and people saying that people who use AI are uneducated, and people who use AI are lazy. I don’t remember how long I was scrolling, but I couldn’t find a positive post about it. I mostly use Bluesky with one of my AI agents, which goes out and researches what people are building so I can get ideas, and there’s a lot of people posting builds on there. There’s just not a lot of people talking positive about AI. I knew the internet was a pretty toxic place, but I thought it would have at least some positive.

I finally stopped because all I was seeing was the negative stuff, and I didn’t follow anybody. I moved on to scrolling funny memes on Instagram instead, and I understand the irony of the whole thing, but I was winding down and that’s what I do in bed. I probably shouldn’t, but it is what it is. I hate that phrase anyways.

The uneducated and lazy stuff kind of bristled me a little bit. The way I like to think of it, AI enhances my abilities, it doesn’t replace them. I’ve learned so much with AI, I’ve learned about this tech world and things within it, and I’ve learned a lot about myself.

I’ll give you an example. My family is pretty spiritual, and I was thinking about how we could be closer together. We have a group text but it’s just kind of a thing, it’s just whatever. So I thought we could have our own social media platform with a feed, that can also help you write talks for church and help with your scripture study. I built it with Claude Code on a Sunday. It took me the day, and the family was using it the next day.

The talk builder is for brainstorming your talk. You pick a scripture or type out what you think, and each one goes in its own little thought bubble, I guess that’s the best way I can say it, and you move them around with your mouse. Before the family ever got it, the bubbles wouldn’t move with the mouse, and it took a couple of different revisions to get it right.

Six months ago I would have thought, that’s kind of cool, I wish I could do that. Now I had the confidence to say no, I totally can make this, and I just did it. I wish people looked at it that way, instead of I can’t send emails so I’m gonna have a robot send emails for me. And this is coming from the guy that’s using AI to write a blog. I do it unabashedly and willingly and knowingly and I’m OK with it.

I can see why people are mad, though. I heard about it on social media and news articles and I looked it up, and it did happen, especially early on with building these data centers. There’s the community water and electricity prices going up, and that’s a lot of pretty bad things. The companies aren’t helping themselves, that’s for sure. They could put them in industrial complexes, because no one really cares about those areas, obviously, ’cause they’re industrial complexes, instead of right next to a neighborhood. I figure next to a neighborhood is probably cheaper, and companies tend to go for the cheaper option.

Then there’s the whole book thing, AI companies buying books and destroying them for training the models. I saw that one on Instagram and looked it up. That one was Anthropic, the company that makes Claude, which is what I use. I still like AI and its uses.

I was angry at both, the companies and the people posting, though not necessarily at the people themselves but at the ignorance of it, and not looking at what it can do.

The same people who are complaining about AI data centers are loving what AI is giving them. It’s like oil. The people saying Big Oil is bad are driving cars and using phones, and it takes oil to make phones, and clothing, and shoes.

I regulated oil companies for 20 years in the Coast Guard, and trust me, if you’re really worried about the environment it’s not the big companies. They get in the news with the bigger spills, but the smaller mom and pop companies have a lot more spills. In 2006, when I was stationed in Mobile, Alabama, there was one at a smaller oil terminal, and it had been raining a lot that week. They’re required to have a berm around their storage tanks to protect the environment in case one spills, and there are valves that open up so they can get the water out. Somebody left that valve open, then one of the tanks failed with 3.5 million gallons of oil in it, and it went into the containment and right out into Mobile Bay. By the time they discovered it and closed the valve, 400 barrels had gotten out, and a barrel is 42 gallons. The tank was still leaking about 10 barrels a minute and we had storms coming in. I was doing contractor oversight on that one, and we were out there a week with the EPA making sure they cleaned it up. It didn’t even make the local news. That’s just one. I’ve got literally thousands of them.

Some things that do bad things are still good, kind of like AI. If people are only seeing the negative and not seeing the benefits, then yes, you are going to get pushback.

Nothing actually changed that night. I didn’t post anything positive and I didn’t try to change the outcome, so maybe I should, but I don’t post anything, negative or positive. I just lurk in the shadows like a creeper.