Resistance to exploitative AI starts with building a movement.

I’m an AI engineer working at a medium-sized ad agency, mostly on non-generative machine learning models (think ad performance prediction, not ad creation). Lately, it feels like people, specifically senior and mid-level managers who do not have engineering experience, are pushing the adoption and development of various AI tools. Honestly, it feels like an unthinking melee.

I consider myself a conscientious objector to the use of AI, especially generative AI; I’m not fully opposed to it, but I constantly ask who actually benefits from the application of AI and what its financial, human, and environmental costs are beyond what is right in front of our noses. Yet, as a rank-and-file employee, I find myself with no real avenue to relay those concerns to people who have actual power to decide. Worse, I feel that even voicing such concerns, admittedly running against the almost blind optimism that I assume affects most marketing companies, is turning me into a pariah in my own workplace.

So my question is this: Considering the difficulty of finding good jobs in AI, is it “worth it” trying to encourage critical AI use in my company, or should I tone it down if only to keep paying the bills?

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