LISTEN TO ARTICLESynthesized Narration • 0:00 / 0:00

In the words of Edward Abbey, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.” And this exact ideology ties closely to what is considered the fastest-growing industry in the world today: Artificial Intelligence. ChatGPT, Meta AI, Grok, and all sorts of automated tools are spreading faster than most of us care to notice. But at what point does such growth stop being helpful and start becoming a force that threatens the very balance of our society? Cancer begins when a cell forgets its purpose. It multiplies without regard for the system it’s part of, consuming resources meant for the body’s balance until— when left untreated— that body inevitably collapses. And AI grows in pretty much the same way. Its expansion thrives on consumption, driven less by necessity than by growth that no one seems willing to sustain. You might have felt it creeping in these days. The thrill of convenience is quietly eroding your ability to think for yourself. The longer it took for you to formulate a more complex thought—the stronger the itch to surrender reigns to your fingers on the search bar instead of wrestling with messy scribbles on paper. What used to be a process of learning has become a habit of asking machines to do the uncomfortable thinking for you. And the scary part is how natural this all feels. We scroll, we type, we ask questions, and for most of us— that's it. But at what point does it become a bit too difficult to disregard? Do you still think ignorance could save us from what is potentially the most dangerous digital disease of our generation? To sink the first of many nails into the coffin, the Philippines, in a recent survey, ranked sixth in the world among ChatGPT users. Around 42.4% of Filipino internet users talk to the chatbot every month— way higher than the global average of 26.5%. That says a lot about who we’re becoming as a society. For one, it reflects our hunger to adapt, to keep up with technology even if the infrastructure around us can’t. But it also shows a quiet dependence that’s hard to ignore. In a country like ours where education and jobs already demand more than what most people can give, AI offers relief. That much is undeniable. But that's also the paradox of AI usage. When people start relying too much on machines, they forget how to struggle through an idea. And that struggle is often where originality lives; it’s what forces us to think, to wrestle with contradictions, to develop patience. AI doesn’t do that. It feeds us with so much clarity, we forget to even doubt what it tells us. Until eventually, we begin to mistake that ease for true intelligence. And here's why we're wrong: All Big Tech companies have mastered the art of consumption. Meta, for instance, is wholly dedicated to expanding its AI advancements. Since 2023, the company started investing in the creation of more data centers, all of which swallow natural resources at alarming rates. The one in Louisiana alone— spanning over 4 million square feet— sank over $10 billion for its construction that began back in December last year. And each of these centers gulps down millions of liters of water daily to properly function, often built in regions that already struggle with resource scarcity. Amazon, on the other hand, is another tech giant worth $2.61 trillion, whose operations are slowly but surely dominated by Artificial Intelligence. Its Web Services (AWS) division runs a massive network of cloud servers that power most AI tools, including ChatGPT. Amazon plans to build more facilities in Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, in the coming years. These expansions are marketed as "job creators,” but the real payoff goes straight back to the company. Worse, internal reports suggest Amazon aims to replace 600,000 workers with robots by 2033, automating three-fourths of its operations to save approximately $12 billion in labor costs. What’s happening here isn’t solely business giants doing what they do best. It’s also a reflection of our mindset as consumers. We’ve grown comfortable letting corporations define what innovation means. We've become too wrapped up in the idea of an even quicker and faster convenience, to the point that we forget real development should also mean responsibility. To achieve true progress, humanity's well-being must also be taken into consideration. And it's not like AI invented this problem, no. It only amplified what’s already there: our obsession with more. But like Edward Abbey’s words, growth without direction leads to collapse. When everything becomes about the expansion of technology, the human side of progress starts to rot. We’ve reached a point where it’s easier to automate empathy than to practice it. People will type “I’m here if you need anything” and then send condolence messages from ChatGPT. Artists compete with AI-generated art that mimics human pain. And in classrooms, teachers can’t tell whether their students’ essays came from thought or a prompt. It’s all starting to blur. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think AI is evil on its own. But its advancement is merely a reflection of our worst habits: excess, dependency, and indifference. Just as unchecked growth destroys the body, unchecked innovation also erodes the mind. And if even our thoughts start running on algorithms, what’s left of us being human? When students turn to AI to finish essays, when job creators replace people with robots, and when people ask chatbots to generate art based on real artists' works, we start to lose something that no amount of coding can replicate: the complexity of human thought. Thinking is supposed to be hard. Writing is supposed to take time. Making art is supposed to squeeze your brain for inspiration. These tasks are all meant to require the beautiful discomfort of trying. But because machines are taking over the process of articulation, people lose patience for introspection. We become numb to the very thing that makes us human. I’m not asking anyone to abandon AI altogether. I recognize the need for it in varying aspects of our lives. However, we must learn how to draw the line between moderation and overconsumption. Students can use AI to refine their ideas, instead of generating them entirely. Artists can study how algorithms interpret form and emotion without surrendering their own voice. Workers can rely on automation to make tasks safer and faster, while still fighting for systems that value human judgment. Because at the end of the day, every tool inherits the ethics of the hands that use it—and that's the only way it can create something truly beautiful. If cancer begins when a cell forgets its purpose in the body, then maybe our age of innovation could be humanity fighting for its purpose in the world. To be alive, aware, and in control.