We know AI is great. A boon.
It helps manage emails, calendars, and spreadsheets.
It gives quick answers, helps with writing, summarises documents, and generates ideas.
It’s our personal therapist, offering emotional support or mental health exercises.
It plans meals, suggest what to watch, and helps with homework.
It’s woven into maps, search engines, and voice assistants—it’s everywhere.
Your social feeds right now are shoving prompts and AI tools down your throat. You can’t miss it… and we are also deliberately ignoring the downside.
The more useful AI becomes, the more we’re encouraged to rely on it.
And as we become more dependent, we ignore the darker, growing role AI is playing.
We’re not unaware of it—we just push it to the side.
That silence could come at a cost we’re not ready to pay.
So here we go…
1. AI Is Undermining Public Services and Targeting the Vulnerable
Governments are using AI to replace human workers in healthcare, welfare, and public services. This is framed as cost-saving or “efficiency”—but in practice, it often means reducing support for people who need it most.
For example, when a welfare office uses an algorithm to decide who is eligible for benefits, mistakes can easily happen.
A person might get denied food assistance or disability support because the AI misread their data.
These systems are rarely designed with empathy or flexibility.
They don’t understand context, nuance, or lived experience the way a human caseworker does.
And it’s often people from already marginalised communities—immigrants, disabled people, and the poor—who are most affected.
Sources:
- Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks (2018) – Book Overview
Explores how predictive algorithms in welfare systems disproportionately harm poor communities. - Michigan’s Faulty Computer System Wrongfully Denied Benefits to Thousands – NPR Article
- Dissecting Racial Bias in an Algorithm That Treated Healthier White Patients Over Sicker Black Patients – Science Magazine, 2019
2. “Black Box” Systems Are Making Harmful Decisions Without Oversight
When people say AI is a “black box,” they mean we don’t know exactly how it works. Even experts often can’t explain why an AI made a particular decision.
This becomes dangerous when those decisions affect real lives—such as who gets approved for a visa, or which job applicant is shortlisted.
Take Australia’s “robo-debt” scandal. The government used an automated system to detect welfare fraud.
But it wrongly accused thousands of people, some of whom faced serious mental health consequences.
There was no human review, no appeals process—just algorithmic punishment.
This is what happens when we allow AI to operate without transparency or accountability.
Sources:
- Australia’s ‘robo-debt’ scheme: automated welfare enforcement and the erosion of legal protections – UNSW Law Journal, 2020
Also see: ABC News Coverage - Lack of Transparency in AI Decision-Making :
Algorithmic Accountability: On the Investigation of Black Boxes – Harvard Berkman Klein Center
3. AI Is Being Used to Support Political Agendas and Corporate Power
AI systems are not neutral.
They reflect the values and biases of the people who design and use them.
Governments have already used AI to target political opponents—especially migrants, activists, and people of colour.
Decisions that used to be political are now disguised as “data-driven” or “objective,” making it harder to challenge them.
Meanwhile, big tech companies align themselves with political groups to protect their own interests.
They avoid regulation by staying useful to those in power.
This growing alliance between Silicon Valley and politics means AI is not just a tool—it’s a strategy to maintain control and cut public services.
Sources:
- The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America – Georgetown Law, 2016
- How ICE Uses Predictive Analytics to Target Immigrants – The Intercept, 2019
- AI as a Tool for Political Control :
Artificial Intelligence, China, and the Future of Authoritarianism – Cato Institute, 2020
4. Tech Leaders Are Reshaping Government to Fit Their Business Model
Elon Musk’s changes at Twitter—mass layoffs, automation, and cost-cutting—mirror what’s happening in the US government. Literally, parroting “Project 2025” – pushing similar reforms across the public sector, replacing human workers with digital systems under their control.
In education, for example, tech firms are pitching AI tools as better alternatives to teachers. These systems often reduce teaching to quizzes and prompts, ignoring the role of relationships, curiosity, and discussion.
The goal is not quality—it’s profit.
And by embedding themselves in daily services, tech companies gather more personal data, increasing their power and reach.
Sources:
- Project 2025 and Tech Influence on Policy :
What Project 2025 Says About Trump and the Conservative Movement – NYT Opinion - AI in Education Replacing Teachers :
The Rise of AI in Education: Will It Replace Teachers? – EdSurge, 2023 - Data Collection via EdTech Platforms :
Privacy Risks in Educational Technology – Fordham Law Report, 2020
5. Tech Companies Are Becoming Defence Contractors
Companies like Tesla, Palantir, and SpaceX are expanding into military and national security work.
They promise faster, cheaper defence solutions through software, drones, and satellites.
Governments welcome them, believing tech can outpace traditional defence industries.
Social media platforms are becoming tools for surveillance or propaganda. Public discourse suffers in this climate.
Voices critical of the state—activists, journalists, opposition groups—are often the first to be watched or silenced.
This overlap between tech and military interests threatens civil liberties and democracy.
Sources:
- Palantir Wins $170M Army Contract for AI-Powered Battlefield Analysis – Defense One, 2021
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX & Starlink in War Zones :
SpaceX’s Starlink Is Helping Ukraine—But at What Cost? – Wired, 2022 - Corporate Surveillance & Civil Liberties :
Silicon Valley’s Surveillance State – The Guardian, 2020
6. Surveillance Capitalism Is Replacing Democratic Values
Tech companies once claimed they would spread democracy and free expression but today, their main focus is market share and shareholder value.
They now offer tools that enable state surveillance beyond anything seen in the past.
When we use these platforms, we’re not just consumers—they’re data sources.
Everything from browsing habits to facial expressions are collected, analysed, and monetised.
AI turns this data into predictive models, shaping what we see, buy, and believe. You can see this with Meta’s LLAMA model being heavily leveraged for meta ads – it not only takes cues around targeting and copy being used, but analyses the images and video ads picking out every possible data point.
Over time, humans begin to act more like the machines they depend on—predictable, trackable, and optimised.
This shift raises serious questions about freedom, identity, and the future of human decision-making.
Sources:
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (2019) – Book Overview
Summary: Harvard Kennedy School Review - Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far – NYT Explained
- Predictive Policing and Racial Bias – Stanford Computational Policy Lab
7. AI Infrastructure Is Devastating the Environment
The term “cloud computing” sounds light and abstract.
But it requires massive physical infrastructure: data centres, servers, power plants, and water supplies.
These centres consume huge amounts of electricity and fresh water. In Chile, tech companies have been blamed for water shortages that hurt local communities.
In Ireland, data centres now use as much power as entire cities.
Meanwhile, the industry’s public commitment to sustainability is often misleading. Greenwashing campaigns suggest eco-friendliness, but emissions and energy use keep rising as AI scales up. The environment pays the price for our digital convenience.
Every ChatGPT prompt uses up the equivalent of 500ml of water.
Sources:
- Inside the Water Crisis Caused by Google and Microsoft Data Centers – Vice, 2023
- Training Transformer-Based Neural Networks Costs $100K and Emits as Much Carbon as Five Cars Over Their Lifetimes – MIT Technology Review, 2019
- Google Accused of Greenwashing as Fossil Fuel Lobbying Surges – The Guardian, 2022
8. Generative AI Is Reshaping Culture in Dehumanising Ways
AI now writes essays, draw images, and compose music.
But most people didn’t ask for this. There’s growing discomfort about AI taking over creative fields.
We risk a flood of generic, soulless content—produced quickly, consumed passively.
In education, students rely on chatbots to write assignments, while schools use AI to grade them.
This “machine logic” approach discourages critical thinking and makes teachers easier to replace.
The deeper issue is cultural.
Society starts treating people like machines—valued only for output, always under pressure to perform.
We’re building a world that prioritises efficiency over meaning.
Sources:
- Impact of AI on Creativity and Education :
Students Are Using ChatGPT to Write College Essays. Professors Are Scrambling. – NYT, 2023 - Critique of AI Art and Cultural Homogenization :
AI Art Isn’t Just Lazy — It’s Dangerous – New York Times Opinion - AI and Loss of Human Touch in Work :
The End of Human Work? AI, Robots, and the Future of Employment – Harvard Business Review, 2022 - Increased AI Use Linked to Eroding Critical Skills – Phys.org, 2025
The Counter-Narratives at Play
The above are the bigger themes around the darker side of AI we need to keep in mind. Like most things in capitalism, unimpeded growth will leave our culture and our environment worse off for the future.
So here are the two counter-narratives which could balance the scales.
1. There’s a Growing Call to Resist Big Tech Power
Public frustration is rising.
From local protests against data centres to wider criticism of companies like Tesla, people are pushing back.
Even political figures like Steve Bannon use this discontent—though often to promote their own agendas.
There’s a need for genuine alternatives.
That means designing technology that serves the public good, not just shareholders.
It also means countries outside the US developing independent tools that reflect their own values.
Protests and public campaigns could be the beginning of a broader movement to hold tech accountable.
Sources:
- Global Protests Against Data Centres :
Ireland’s Data Centre Boom Is Straining Its Grid – BBC, 2022 - Tech Resistance Movements :
From Protest to Policy: How Tech Backlash Could Shape Regulation – MIT Sloan Review, 2021 - Calls for Alternative Technologies :
Reclaiming Technology for the Public Good – TNI Report, 2020
2. Reclaiming Human Values in a Mechanised World
Some are proposing bold alternatives—like free electric buses instead of private electric cars. These ideas centre people, not machines. They challenge a society that feels increasingly automated and oppressive.
I think Charlie Chaplin’s speech in “The Great Dictator” is appropriate here, especially this part…
“Don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts!”
We need art, education, and public debate that remind us what it means to be human.
Not just content that flatters algorithms.
Sources:
- Human-Centered Design Alternatives :
Design Justice: Community-Led Practices, Spaces, and Technologies by Sasha Costanza-Chock (2020) – MIT Press - Role of Art and Education in Preserving Humanity :
Why We Need the Humanities in the Age of AI – The Conversation, 2023
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