Honestly, the OS-level age verification stuff, like, I'm opposed to it because in principle I'm opposed to computers that work for big software companies instead of their users (and also because the bills for it I've seen don't account for OSes that aren't clients for their manufacturer, like linux, and because once you create room for censorship laws that only apply to kids you get consent fro straight ppl to cut LGBT kids off from community), but if you say it's about ID checks or similar massive expansions of data collection like previous internet she verification laws have been, then bystanders who look into it will find out it's not and think you're lying.
These bills standardize that OS manufacturers use the data they're already collecting on their end users to implement parental controls and demand that everyone else comply with their parental control settings.
The companies that would be required to put an API in your OS to tell websites and apps how old the user is (as informed by the presumed-adult account owner) are the ones lobbying for these laws to require everyone else to use it. The surveillance data will already be there.
How telling it is that you still have not directly answered the core ethical question!
Here's it clearly spelled out for you: Do the benefits of large scale AI deployment outweigh its external costs?
Critiquing how the question is asked is not the same as answering it.
Comparing generative AI to spellcheck, calculators, or search engines is completely false equivalence. Those tools do not, will not, and have never mass scraped creative work, generated substitute content at an industrial scale, or required comparable infrastructure.
Saying previous technologies displaced workers is also not justification. Historical repetition doesn't make any of this harm acceptable or tolerable. This would mean that, in "your" eyes, just because it happened before means it's okay for it to happen again?
Also, claiming that AI is "here to stay" is not a defense in the slightest. Persisting systems doesn't equate to legitimacy. We see this logic exemplified via tyrannical regimes, for instance.
On top of that, the whole water argument misses the point entirely. The issue is that many data centers consume major local water resources and strain communities already facing shortages. Saying some use recycled water does not excuse the ones that do not, no?
Although this may not directly affect your everyday life, it's important that you try to put the shoe on the other foot.
You keep conceding AI causes serious harm while refusing to explain why its current deployment is ethically proportionate to said harms.
Again, that is the question.
The disagreement is whether its harms are justified by its present use.
You still have failed to answer that.
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Let’s begin.
“Do the benefits of large-scale AI deployment outweigh its external costs?”
This is a legitimate ethical question.
It is also an incomplete one.
Framing the issue as a simple cost–benefit calculation assumes that complex systems can be reduced to a single moral equation — where harm is weighed against utility and a final verdict is reached.
In practice, that is not how most technologies are evaluated or governed.
The internet, industrial systems, transportation, and global supply chains all carry measurable harm — environmental, economic, and social. None were adopted because their harms were “justified” in isolation.
They were adopted, contested, regulated, and continuously adjusted over time.
The relevant question, then, is not simply whether benefits outweigh harms.
It is:
how those harms are distributed
who bears them
how they are mitigated
and what mechanisms exist to hold systems accountable
A system can produce benefit and still be unacceptable in its current form.
A system can produce harm and still be worth regulating rather than abandoning.
Reducing that complexity to a binary “justified or not” does not resolve the issue — it obscures it.
“Historical repetition doesn’t justify harm”
Correct.
But historical repetition is not being presented as justification.
It is being presented as pattern.
When new technologies emerge, they tend to:
disrupt labour
redistribute power
create new forms of dependency
and generate both benefit and harm simultaneously
Pointing that out is not an endorsement of harm.
It is recognition that these dynamics are not new — and therefore require structured responses, not moral absolutism.
“AI is here to stay is not a defense”
Also correct.
Persistence does not equal legitimacy.
But persistence does change the nature of the problem.
If a system is already embedded and expanding, the ethical question shifts from:
“Should this exist?”
to:
“How should this be governed?”
Ignoring that distinction does not strengthen the argument.
It avoids the part where decisions actually get made.
Water usage
You’re right to point out that the issue is not resolved by saying some systems use recycled water.
The concern about local strain is valid.
But again, that reinforces the same point:
This is not an argument for individual abstention.
It is an argument for infrastructure oversight, regulation, and resource management at scale.
On proportionality
You’re asking for a justification that the current level of harm is ethically proportionate to the benefits.
That’s a fair demand.
The answer is:
There is no single, universal threshold where that balance is objectively “met.”
Different sectors, governments, and communities will draw that line differently — which is precisely why regulation, not individual refusal, is the mechanism used to define it.
Final point
The question you’re asking matters.
But it does not have a fixed, universal answer — and it cannot be resolved through individual moral positioning alone.
It is resolved through governance, constraint, and collective decision-making over time.
You don’t settle a system’s ethics by declaring it unjustified.
You shape it by deciding how it is allowed to operate.
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If you're following KOSA, you should also be following state legislation, which is much more rapidly adopting tech regulation related to child safety than Congress. For reference, in 2023, 13 states adopted 23 laws related to child safety online.
Even if your locality hasn't adopted similar tech regulation, online platforms, apps, and websites are rarely operating in only some states. When regulations become patchwork, it's often easier for companies to adopt policies reflective of the most stringent regulations relevant to their service for all users, rather than try to implement different policies for users based on each user's location.
I know this because that's what happened when patchwork data privacy regulations began swelling — which is why many webites have privacy policies reflective of the GDPR that apply even to users outside of Europe. I also know this because I'm a tech lawyer — I'm the wet cat drafting policies for and advising tech and video game companies on how to navigate messy, convoluted, and patchwork US regulatory obligations.
So, when I say this is how companies are thinking about this, I mean this is how my coworkers and I have to think about this. And because the US is such a large market, this could impact users outside the US, too.
