OpenAI is building a ladder to comprehensive surveillance. Each rung delivers value—ChatGPT, health tools, wearables, BCIs—while collecting everything about you
“We all need to understand the trade-offs and choices we’re making, preferably while we’re still low enough on the ladder to get to ground safely. Convenience vs. privacy, our data vs. free access, integration vs. a little friction.”
100% to that. convenient solutions are often the most insecure. companies default into this position because it decreases onboarding friction, but causes a lot of trouble downstream.
Precisely. I’m pretty sure if Open Claw added even something slightly more secure (like hardened Docker containers), it would have lost ½ its userbase. And I get it — faffing about with dependency/implementation hell sucks eggs.
I guess I just need to hope for the Signal-ification of AI Agents, which is both hard to execute and rarely considered.
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.
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.
“We all need to understand the trade-offs and choices we’re making, preferably while we’re still low enough on the ladder to get to ground safely. Convenience vs. privacy, our data vs. free access, integration vs. a little friction.”
100% to that. convenient solutions are often the most insecure. companies default into this position because it decreases onboarding friction, but causes a lot of trouble downstream.
great read thanks!
Precisely. I’m pretty sure if Open Claw added even something slightly more secure (like hardened Docker containers), it would have lost ½ its userbase. And I get it — faffing about with dependency/implementation hell sucks eggs.
I guess I just need to hope for the Signal-ification of AI Agents, which is both hard to execute and rarely considered.
yeah that’s a great point. it was probably a flash in the pan, but the next products that take this seriously at scale hopefully can learn from it!
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.
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.
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