Life after chatbots: Meet the 'AI vegans' refusing to accept a virtual reality (www.euronews.com)

A loose but growing movement of mostly young people calling themselves "AI vegans" are deliberately abstaining from generative AI — citing ethical, environmental and cognitive harms. The tipping point for some was everyday moments like a Warframe art contest accepting AI images, which participants saw as unfair to practicing artists. The community has swelled on platforms such as Reddit (70k+ members) and echoes protests from creators who argue that large models are trained by scraping copyrighted creative work without consent. Technically and socially, their objections matter: generative models are trained on vast, unvetted datasets and incur real energy and resource costs (a 2023 study equated a short ChatGPT conversation to the water footprint of a bottle), while a small MIT study reported lower brain engagement and weaker recall in students who used ChatGPT to write essays. Critics also point to “sycophantic” chatbot behaviors that can validate false beliefs and uncanny‑valley artefacts in AI imagery. Responses range from calls for bans or strict regulation and age limits in learning environments to proposals for ethically sourced training data and user choice in workplaces. The movement highlights a broader debate about when and how AI should augment — rather than replace — human creativity, learning and responsibility.