OpenAI is building a ladder to comprehensive surveillance. Each rung delivers value—ChatGPT, health tools, wearables, BCIs—while collecting everything about you
This is a great piece - a really well-imagined and -informed take on how the enshittification process will play out for LLMs.
It also feels like exactly the right time to be saying it. Worrying about the amount of data we send to US companies used to be a fringe privacy nerd thing.
Now everyone is worrying about dependency on the US more broadly. This feels like an important part of that conversation.
I loved this! Agreed with none of it. Loved it just the same
The entire time I was reading it, I just kept thinking:
I’ve always been cordial with PRIVACAT (ALL CAPS, IYKYK), engaged with her content in a way that I hoped would drive conversations, if on re-read I though I found myself “mansplaining” I deleted those comments. So why does PC not want me to have a digiSlave?!?! I need one to manage how busy I am. It’s like a Digimon but, you know, for…
Slavery
Let me holla at ya PC - I know I’m not busy right now, but I will be. The most important people are very busy. Busy basically means Important. Yes they are busy at cheating at homework they gave themselves. That’s how productivity works! Look around you PC, no one is curing cancer and everyone wants to go viral. No one here gets to go home early. We are all pretending it took us all day so “The Tall Ones” think we care about this toil. How are you going to manage a personal digital brand on your off time in an increasingly insecure internet? By being busy
I know the nordics have a 4 day work week. Who cares? That’s hippy shit. Their biggest export is “Romantic Rugs”
I’m trying to chant BUSY 3X into the mirror like its Candy Man
.
.
.
Ok, I see it now. I was being glib again. You’re right PC. My bad
This is a truly impressive piece, put together with remarkable meticulousness, guiding the reader step by step up and down the ladder. And for me personally, as the author of the fiction novel “2040”, it’s an absolute treasure trove of insights and ideas. It feels like home here 🙂 Let’s connect!
Thank you Mila! I really appreciate the generous sentiments. I'm always happy to help fuel fellow dystopian writers' imaginations with the parade of horrible-but-plausible scenarios I see.
If you ever do want to feature me, consider calling me Cassandra. I'll have red hair, and bring forth accurate predictions on privacy disasters that no one will ever believe. :D
This is a great article. Thanks so much for clearly doing a hell of a lot of research to pull it together and writing in a way that's both informed and engaging.
I wonder if OpenAI are already making us climb the ladder without realising it, as even if we don't end up using ChatGPT, health, or gaining an OpenAI-sponsored neuro link. Many users have already had extremely detailed and private conversations with these AI tools, and that means OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc. already have access to a lot of who we are as humans.
Thank you, Sam! I think they are. OpenAI is in so many things that most people don't realize -- IoT devices, SaaS applications, phone apps. And of course, so are Google, Apple, and Amazon. And they already had a head start on getting to know us.
This is a great piece - a really well-imagined and -informed take on how the enshittification process will play out for LLMs.
It also feels like exactly the right time to be saying it. Worrying about the amount of data we send to US companies used to be a fringe privacy nerd thing.
Now everyone is worrying about dependency on the US more broadly. This feels like an important part of that conversation.
I loved this! Agreed with none of it. Loved it just the same
The entire time I was reading it, I just kept thinking:
I’ve always been cordial with PRIVACAT (ALL CAPS, IYKYK), engaged with her content in a way that I hoped would drive conversations, if on re-read I though I found myself “mansplaining” I deleted those comments. So why does PC not want me to have a digiSlave?!?! I need one to manage how busy I am. It’s like a Digimon but, you know, for…
Slavery
Let me holla at ya PC - I know I’m not busy right now, but I will be. The most important people are very busy. Busy basically means Important. Yes they are busy at cheating at homework they gave themselves. That’s how productivity works! Look around you PC, no one is curing cancer and everyone wants to go viral. No one here gets to go home early. We are all pretending it took us all day so “The Tall Ones” think we care about this toil. How are you going to manage a personal digital brand on your off time in an increasingly insecure internet? By being busy
I know the nordics have a 4 day work week. Who cares? That’s hippy shit. Their biggest export is “Romantic Rugs”
I’m trying to chant BUSY 3X into the mirror like its Candy Man
.
.
.
Ok, I see it now. I was being glib again. You’re right PC. My bad
I do always appreciate your irreverence, RFumes -- you made me laugh, and that's good enough. Even if you don't agree with me. :D
Phew! You get my humor. I was afraid it wouldn’t land
Everything you said is true. SamAlt is just the latest huck to chuck this spaghetti at the wall for investors
Microsoft wants agentic OS - its noisy and insecure as fuck
Google is reworking the scaffolding of the internet to the point where we may need another layer in OSI model
Musk is strangling monkeys with his bare hands at NeuraLink to make BCI a thing
But the people in this space want to be influencers on LinkedIn
This is a truly impressive piece, put together with remarkable meticulousness, guiding the reader step by step up and down the ladder. And for me personally, as the author of the fiction novel “2040”, it’s an absolute treasure trove of insights and ideas. It feels like home here 🙂 Let’s connect!
Thank you Mila! I really appreciate the generous sentiments. I'm always happy to help fuel fellow dystopian writers' imaginations with the parade of horrible-but-plausible scenarios I see.
If you ever do want to feature me, consider calling me Cassandra. I'll have red hair, and bring forth accurate predictions on privacy disasters that no one will ever believe. :D
Okay, Cassandra 😊
This is a great article. Thanks so much for clearly doing a hell of a lot of research to pull it together and writing in a way that's both informed and engaging.
I wonder if OpenAI are already making us climb the ladder without realising it, as even if we don't end up using ChatGPT, health, or gaining an OpenAI-sponsored neuro link. Many users have already had extremely detailed and private conversations with these AI tools, and that means OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc. already have access to a lot of who we are as humans.
Thank you, Sam! I think they are. OpenAI is in so many things that most people don't realize -- IoT devices, SaaS applications, phone apps. And of course, so are Google, Apple, and Amazon. And they already had a head start on getting to know us.