In a post-scarcity solarpunk future, I could imagine some reasonable uses, but that’s not the world we’re living in yet.
AI art has already poisoned the creative environment. I commissioned an artist for my latest solarpunk novel, and they used AI without telling me. I had to scrap that illustration. Then the next person I tried to hire claimed they could do the work without AI but in fact they could not.
All that is to say, fuck generative AI and fuck capitalism!
Yeah, except we don't have anything even close to ready for everyone who will lose their income. I foresee a lot of hardship coming, especially since those in power tend to horde all resources for themselves, and AI will allow them to horde resources at never before imaginable levels.
That should be at the forefront of our political discourse. We had Andrew Yang bring make some noise back in 2019/2020, but he was the only one to bring AI, automation, and UBI and he kind of faded into irrelevancy. Which is unfortunate because nobody else is talking about any of these things, especially the dinosaurs we have running for president right now.