Hey First name / there,
About a decade ago, I read a book of essays by Roxane Gay called
Bad Feminist. In the
eponymous essay, Gay unpacks the tension between her feminist values and human imperfections. She talks about listening to rap music with sexist lyrics, loving pink (the horror!), and caring too much what people think. Things that, in some circles, make her a “bad feminist.”
Her point? It’s impossible to live in a flawed world without, at times, being complicit in its flaws. And trying to be a perfect feminist (or perfect anything) is joyless and utterly exhausting.
But here’s the line that always stuck with me:
“While I may be a bad feminist, I am deeply committed to the issues important to the feminist movement.”
In other words, I'm not perfect, but I give a shit.
What does a 2014 book of essays about feminism have to do with using AI in The Year of Our Robot Overlords, two thousand and twenty-five?
Much like feminism, the world of AI has its own ideological purists.
Here are a few of the main camps I've identified:
🌳 The Environmentalists - This group believes using AI is morally indefensible because of its massive carbon footprint.
✍🏻 The Anti-Plagiarists - This group argues that generative AI is unethical because it was trained on copyrighted material, making any output derivative at best and outright theft at worst.
🤖 The Pro-Hominids - This group believes AI undermines human creativity and labor, replacing artisans and thinkers with machine-generated content that lacks depth and soul.
Sidebar Rant
These are also the people who like to claim that any piece of writing containing em dashes was AI-generated. (Um, excuse me, but I've been am em dash enthusiast my whole life and I am not about to stop using them just because ChatGPT took a liking to them too. 😑)
End Sidebar Rant
And honestly? They’re not wrong.
(Except about the em dashes. They are totally wrong about those.)
AI does consume alarming amounts of energy.
It has been trained on data sets that include copyrighted works without consent or compensation.
It is being used by some to shortcut craftsmanship and originality.
All of that is true and worth grappling with.
But it’s also true that AI is an incredibly useful tool.
Especially for disabled folks, solo entrepreneurs, overworked creatives, underpaid educators, overwhelmed parents, and anyone else trying to stay afloat in a world with too many demands and not enough time.
If you know me at all, you know that I care deeply about the environment. I try to avoid fast fashion as much as possible, limit my use of harmful chemicals, and do what I can to reduce environmental harm.
I also host my website on a platform with a carbon rating of F (really, Squarespace?) and use ChatGPT daily in my business and personal life.
I’m not here to pretend I’m above it. I’m here to say that it’s complicated.
There is nuance in everything. And ideological purity, while noble in theory, doesn’t always hold up in practice—especially when you’re running a business, managing a household, or navigating chronic illness.
So maybe I’m a bad environmentalist.
A bad creative.
A bad feminist.
But I care. I’m paying attention. I’m making thoughtful choices where I can and living with trade-offs where I must.
And if you’re doing the same or you want to explore using AI? You’re not a bad person. You’re just a human trying to make it work.
