April 20 kicked off a legal feud between tech tycoons Sam Altman and Elon Musk that has been brewing in Silicon Valley for the past several years. Founded on a bromance tragically turned sour, Musk brought the case to court, and it will cover both personal grievances and founding principles of OpenAI. While the case itself has devolved primarily into egotistical complaints, Musk’s supposed concerns regarding AI safety present an opportunity to evaluate AI’s trajectory as a problematic technology worth boycotting.

Musk’s case against Altman claims that the latter breached the founding mission of OpenAI — to benefit all of humanity — by restructuring the company to be for-profit. In an ideal world, AI technology would be a tool for the improvement of society, such as performing menial workplace tasks or jobs too dangerous for humans. Unfortunately, as AI continues to rapidly develop, it has diverged from these functions, inflicting harm on the environment, society, and individuals. When entities and corporations create harmful externalities and fail to represent the interests of the constituents they are allegedly designed to serve, the logical response from said constituents is outrage. Despite this, the opposite has occurred — disgruntled acceptance from the general population. It raises an important question: Why did we give up on the power of boycotting?

Boycotting facilitates the propagation of community by advocating for collective interests, bolstering local businesses, and keeping greedy corporations in check. According to Scott Galloway, the founder of the Resist and Unsubscribe boycott movement against subscription-driven consumer tech companies like OpenAI, “The most radical act you can perform in a capitalist society is nonparticipation.” However, what constitutes “successful” boycotting is not always clear, resulting in consumers not recognizing its functionality. Some cases, such as the Montgomery bus boycotts, culminated in legal action. Others, like fans’ boycott of the NFL in response to the league’s treatment of former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, sparked national conversations and drew greater attention to the issues at hand. Boycotts do not have to produce tangible, quantifiable results — such as profit loss — to be successful. In the case of a profit-driven company drowning in as much debt as OpenAI, boycotting is a feasible and effective action that has the ability to inspire reform or even the destruction of this corrupt corporation. 

While it seems dubious that Musk, the founder of xAI and its immensely problematic chatbot Grok, is voicing his worries in court due to his “altruistic nature,” his concerns regarding the preservation of  OpenAI’s mission to benefit humanity should not be discounted. Rather than facilitating the betterment of humanity, Altman’s technology actively achieves the opposite. It relies on data centers that siphon vast amounts of energy and water, disproportionately harming the health and living conditions of rural, low-income communities. Additionally, OpenAI has not substantively tried to inhibit its use in Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and more recently, the planning of a double homicide in Florida. At the individual level, overreliance on AI technology can have unintended psychological and cognitive consequences. Most appalling of all is the fact that, like many of the atrocities and indignities occurring in the world today, this information evokes nothing more than apathy or adamant disregard from many people, including students.

This begs the question of why modern boycotts often struggle to gain traction with the public. Much of the evidence of ChatGPT’s detrimental impacts are easily accessible to the general public through mainstream news, media, and scientific studies, so why have we — informed and intelligent college students — not made a point of using alternative sources of information and academic assistance? This is primarily a product of our society’s reliance on convenience and feelings of helplessness regarding the plethora of sociopolitical issues humanity currently faces. 

Heightened emotions tend to dissipate over time; fervent boycotts are often reduced to frustrated dinner table conversations. There are an abundance of ethical, small, or local substitutes to morally compromised goods if you put in the minimal effort to seek them out. As for OpenAI, less morally compromised substitutes include Anthropic’s Claude.ai, which was blacklisted by President Donald Trump for advocating for AI regulation. Or, simply — the most ethical option of all — do a bit of research with the help of good old-fashioned Google or a book. It is during daunting times like these that we must put aside our trivial individual interests and come together to create change.

Despite these disheartening developments, we can push back against corruption in corporations embedded in our everyday lives and society through boycotting. To stare corruption in its eyes and choose to actively support its perpetration by unprincipled corporations through consuming their products, rather than engage in boycotts and seek out alternatives, is a disservice to yourself and those around you. Inaction makes you an integral part of the company’s unscrupulous acquisition of wealth and consequential impacts upon society. Crafting the “perfect” email with more haste is not worth lining the pockets of individuals who have no regard for our futures. Our collective power as a generation is stronger than the greed of individuals, and it is a power we can wield to create meaningful change.