For everybody not familiar with MOMO – originally it’s a children's book written by Michael Ende, in which ghostly thieves in gray suits take away people's time by convincing them to be more efficient to “save” time, leading to a gray, joyless life.

Momo, the girl with the special ability to truly listen to others, is the only one who can stop this creeping threat by showing people what it means to really live and by bringing time back from Master Hora together with the turtle Kassiopeia.

What does that have to do with AI? As with every new technology, the promise is to make our life easier and more laid back…

But as shown in MOMO, maybe just dealing with numbers and regarding AI with ones and zeros is not what we are born for.

Maybe AI is not making humans happy, but the opposite. Maybe it’s something we got now that nobody asked for (except for those making a ridiculous amount of money using others' artworks and remixing them…).

So let’s reduce AI, let’s think again, let’s meet in real life, let’s shoot the classic way, maybe even analogue.

*On an additional note regarding the CO2 discussion: For everybody arguing AI is less CO2-intense than a big commercial shoot – both options are quite stupid for our earth and only serving capitalism, that’s clear. I’m aware of the footprint for analogue film as well, but please stop selling me AI with nonsense arguments. Image prompts might not dry up deserts directly, but AI data centers consume millions of gallons of freshwater for cooling, creating droughts just so we can generate pictures of cats in space. Individual CO2 footprints don’t change the climate on their own, and paper straws don’t save the oceans (from overfishing). Big data companies like Palantir and all the hidden computation way beyond generating an image or doing a search are the culprits.

*Additional note 2: I know there are advantages for all kinds of applications and humans. This is an individual perspective and idea based on MOMO.

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Summary: Let’s think twice about who and which services we give our time to! For me personally, life is more colorful with reduced use of AI.

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