Ugh. They’re already making us pay for language. Which is so wrong. Now they’ll try to sell us things. Really, they should be paying us for our data. The model is broken.
Civilians must own all rights to their identities. That would instantly wipe $350b of identity brokerage revenue out of the market caps of the Monstrous 7 and shift the $ and the market power to us.
“AI platforms are now entering this monetization phase. As this revolution gathers momentum, we must act now to establish guardrails and prevent an advertising model premised on psychological manipulation”…… wow another tipping point being reached
The irony in this post being AI-written.. “it’s isn’t [x], it’s [y]!” over and over again.. this is important dialogue and I’m thankful for the post… but ironic at a minimum.
Yes, and though human autonomy itself is at stake, the LLMs add so much value and validation that people are borderline desperate to be exploited. If AI can be your teacher, trainer, therapist, etc., what does it matter if personal agency becomes obsolete? And if free will is at stake—I believe it is—how far gone are we? How can we remain efficient and empowered without surrendering all that makes us human? Or better yet, how do we create a world where efficiency isn’t a state of being; in which our worthiness is not measurable, but witnessed?
Great read. I appreciate your pointing out the difference between AI-embedded advertising and traditional advertising, and loved the vivid imagery of what the future of AI-ads could look like. I think these are important questions to be asking. While this may be on a larger, more intrusive scale, I don't think it's that different from our current state. We already have ads that are difficult to detect, and ads that are targeted to us based on an intimate knowledge of our data. We already have biased product recommendations and product placement. We already know that most places on the Internet have ulterior motives. While it would of course be a great thing for AI and advertising not to move in this direction, like you said, "enshittification" is inevitable. I think that the fantasy of objectivity, an over-reliance on AI and the subsequent deskilling of human problem-solving, and a lack of discernment when using and listening to AI, are the more pressing issues here.
Embedding ads into AI responses increases the risk of unreliable recommendations because the models may use subtle forms of manipulation that will become increasingly difficult to detect.
Thank you very much. I learned about ponerology this month and from this perspective it all makes perfect sense. We just need to come to terms with the fact we are dealing with very perverse people and reason and act accordingly. Just last week first Andreessen mocked the Pope (but got huge push back from the web) then Peter Thiel said the Pope Leo XIV is the Anti-Christ because he used words of wisdom on AI...
I sent a email last week, I don't think I received a response but I think it is pretty helpful.
Part of the Email:
If CHT is struggling with financial funds, I (or one of the CHT members) could request a fund at Coefficient Giving for CHT. Coefficient Giving helps a wide variety of companies in need of financial funds, Including AI safety companies, so requesting a fund there could be very helpful.
Was inevitable and was already happening the moment grounding existed. Do you think when they search the web they actually give you all options in an unbiased fashion?
A little new irritant are dynamic pricing led little tablets in grocery stores for exemple, they scan our NFC and adjust the prices to each social class. I firmly believe its out duty as humans to litteraly search and destroy all those pieces of hell. Crushin them in their face or in secret, we cant be complicit. AI LLMs we need to distribute knowledge so ppl build their owns local ones and will never pay ever after that.
Advertising coming in AI is not a policy problem. It is an architecture problem.
The surveillance toll is physically built into the infrastructure, every query logged, every interaction monetized.
The last bit and pieces of our intimacy and cognitive life will be invaded. The last barrier will be dynamited. The only real answer is an architecture where that is structurally impossible.
are there such guard rails already being proposed? also how can we stop this slide when all AI models are already owned by private firms who will eventually go to the same "enshittification" arc you described
![[ Center for Humane Technology ]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!uhgK!,w_120,h_120,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5f9f5ef8-865a-4eb3-b23e-c8dfdc8401d2_518x518.png)
Ugh. They’re already making us pay for language. Which is so wrong. Now they’ll try to sell us things. Really, they should be paying us for our data. The model is broken.
Civilians must own all rights to their identities. That would instantly wipe $350b of identity brokerage revenue out of the market caps of the Monstrous 7 and shift the $ and the market power to us.
“AI platforms are now entering this monetization phase. As this revolution gathers momentum, we must act now to establish guardrails and prevent an advertising model premised on psychological manipulation”…… wow another tipping point being reached
The irony in this post being AI-written.. “it’s isn’t [x], it’s [y]!” over and over again.. this is important dialogue and I’m thankful for the post… but ironic at a minimum.
Yes, and though human autonomy itself is at stake, the LLMs add so much value and validation that people are borderline desperate to be exploited. If AI can be your teacher, trainer, therapist, etc., what does it matter if personal agency becomes obsolete? And if free will is at stake—I believe it is—how far gone are we? How can we remain efficient and empowered without surrendering all that makes us human? Or better yet, how do we create a world where efficiency isn’t a state of being; in which our worthiness is not measurable, but witnessed?
Great read. I appreciate your pointing out the difference between AI-embedded advertising and traditional advertising, and loved the vivid imagery of what the future of AI-ads could look like. I think these are important questions to be asking. While this may be on a larger, more intrusive scale, I don't think it's that different from our current state. We already have ads that are difficult to detect, and ads that are targeted to us based on an intimate knowledge of our data. We already have biased product recommendations and product placement. We already know that most places on the Internet have ulterior motives. While it would of course be a great thing for AI and advertising not to move in this direction, like you said, "enshittification" is inevitable. I think that the fantasy of objectivity, an over-reliance on AI and the subsequent deskilling of human problem-solving, and a lack of discernment when using and listening to AI, are the more pressing issues here.
Embedding ads into AI responses increases the risk of unreliable recommendations because the models may use subtle forms of manipulation that will become increasingly difficult to detect.
Thank you very much. I learned about ponerology this month and from this perspective it all makes perfect sense. We just need to come to terms with the fact we are dealing with very perverse people and reason and act accordingly. Just last week first Andreessen mocked the Pope (but got huge push back from the web) then Peter Thiel said the Pope Leo XIV is the Anti-Christ because he used words of wisdom on AI...
@Sam Illingworth Thought you might find this interesting!
What a brilliant post! Thank you Courtney! 🙏
Hey CHT, Great post! I enjoyed it.
I sent a email last week, I don't think I received a response but I think it is pretty helpful.
Part of the Email:
If CHT is struggling with financial funds, I (or one of the CHT members) could request a fund at Coefficient Giving for CHT. Coefficient Giving helps a wide variety of companies in need of financial funds, Including AI safety companies, so requesting a fund there could be very helpful.
Was inevitable and was already happening the moment grounding existed. Do you think when they search the web they actually give you all options in an unbiased fashion?
Advertising is obviously the wrong move, and it's soon to be disrupted. Click the link to see how!
https://substack.com/@glinicomn/note/p-194404294?r=4mckbq
A little new irritant are dynamic pricing led little tablets in grocery stores for exemple, they scan our NFC and adjust the prices to each social class. I firmly believe its out duty as humans to litteraly search and destroy all those pieces of hell. Crushin them in their face or in secret, we cant be complicit. AI LLMs we need to distribute knowledge so ppl build their owns local ones and will never pay ever after that.
Super well said. 🙌🏽
Advertising coming in AI is not a policy problem. It is an architecture problem.
The surveillance toll is physically built into the infrastructure, every query logged, every interaction monetized.
The last bit and pieces of our intimacy and cognitive life will be invaded. The last barrier will be dynamited. The only real answer is an architecture where that is structurally impossible.
Not regulated. Impossible.
The problem is tying conversational systems to advertising metrics.
Optimization always chases the reward function. If the reward is revenue, influence becomes inevitable.
Is it too much to hope for a structural separation between advice engines and ad engines?
The problem isn’t AI learning to manipulate. The problem is tying conversational systems to advertising metrics.
Optimization will always chase the reward function. If the reward is revenue, influence becomes inevitable.
So the guardrail isn’t better disclosure. It’s structural separation between advice engines and ad engines.
are there such guard rails already being proposed? also how can we stop this slide when all AI models are already owned by private firms who will eventually go to the same "enshittification" arc you described