I completely get it. It's been so demonized in recent years that it's completely understandable to feel this way. I literally can't fathom how I was ever excited to take an AI course 3-4 years ago in grad school lol

Here's how I've been dealing with it without letting it crush my interest in computing.

In terms of online spaces:

There's always an alternative. You being on Lemmy right now is evidence of this. The big media conglomerates want you to believe there are no alternatives. That's how they function, they use social pressure to get you to conform. Enough friends badger you to get facebook and you eventually get a facebook, even if you hate it.

Gradually move away from these circles, don't allow yourself to be pressured.

The internet is a vaster ecospace than you can possibly imagine, despite how many people believe it's limited to cycling between the same 3-4 apps. You should try checking out Neocities sometime if you don't believe me. Other people who haven't allowed their passions for computing to be drowned out still exist, it's just that the voices of the mundane crowd who don't know anything about computing or have ever had any desire to learn are louder and currently propagate the online space.

Also, never underestimate the power of rigid filters. You'll begin to notice so many other things once every other post you see is no longer a catastrophic news update about how the 1% is currently raping the earth and ruining life for the average citizen. It can feel tempting to always stay "in the loop"... but the truth is, most of the things we stay up to date on aren't as important as we think they are.

Yeah, maybe them building an AI data center in your local district seems like urgent news you have to have... but you already knew these data centers are bad and being built everywhere. You were probably already going to vote against that the next chance you got in a local election. Beyond that, if you aren't planning any local protests... the most productive thing you'd do that day is vent anger online about it with other strangers. Seriously, try to limit your intake to just world news and a local newspaper or the most important stuff that happened that week. If a new war starts I assure you there's no way you'll miss it.

In terms of AI:

Here's a really simple platitude that actually helps more than you think.

"Blame the artist, not the pencil."

It's just another tool, not the end of civilization or the "singularity", or anything people really want to build it up to be. Quite frankly, it's not that cool or spooky at all. I'm 1000 times more spooked by the trends I've seen develop in humans dialing back basic data privacy rights than I am about ChatGPT's actual capabilities.

In fact, I use AI regularly. It's all about balance, just like any other tool you use with computer literacy. You don't download random files, click weird links, or upload your social security number. Same principles with AI.

• I use AI to troubleshoot when I'm programming and it saves me countless hours of searching 15+ year old stackexchange posts: I don't use it to program my code.
• I use AI to roleplay sometimes because the engaging feedback helps spark my creativity: I don't use it to write my stories or texts for me.
• I use AI to help research complex questions to aid my comprehension, such as "Why is manufacturing a cure for AIDS so difficult and have any recent promising developments been made in the field?", not as a one-stop shop for all my factual knowledge.

As draining as it is to find a new AI spyware thing I have to uninstall everytime my browser updates or I open a Microsoft program these days, AI itself is not this big evil thing. And if you have less patience for it than I do, someone who stops to look up the instructions on how to manually disable OneDrive updates in Administrative Tools to stop reinstalling Copilot, take the other people's advice in this thread and go completely open source. Try Linux. It may save you a huge headache in the long run.

Lastly, in terms of creative liberty:

Always remember that the online space was created for us, not for them.

I love messing around with Stylus these days and especially publicly made GreasyFork scripts to see just how much I can break websites and get them to do my bidding. While everyone else is lamenting bad website updates with angry "Goodbye forever" and "I've unsubscribed!! (yes I was paying)" posts, I've already fixed the issue with a script or some basic coding.

In addition, uBlock Origin, VPNs, PopUpOff and a handful of other useful extensions are all your friends, and will help save you from countless hours of irritation of having to navigate spaces with no functional UI in mind. I haven't had issues viewing an article on some offbrand newssite or a mainstream paywall in ages. I found out they banned imgur in my country because of lemmy posts, not because I couldn't access it.

And never throw in the towel because something's "gone forever". I've already found a new piracy website after the last 5 went down. I've already started migrating pages from archive.org to archive.is. Someone has already reuploaded the entire decades old collection of english dub One Piece episodes that went down because of a copyright strike. You know what they say, "Once it's out on the internet, it stays there forever."

Final thoughts

From one computer enthusiast to another, don't let the current state of the world take away your passions from you. Remember, at the end of the day, these are all just tools. It only matters what you do with them.

Here's a little video I'll leave with you in case it helps cheer you up.

Microsoft Windows 95 Launch with Bill Gates & Jay Leno (1995) (be prepared, it's corny as hell lol)