I don’t think we realize how good we have it right now. ChatGPT is unbiased (configurable solely and fully by the user) and truly tries its best to be useful. It’s surely a question of time before OpenAI lets advertisers pay them to introduce product placement and subconscious biases into the LLM in exchange for cash. This could make eg. all medical advice it gives make it seem like you need one specific, sponsoring, medication. What alternatives are there for getting the current experience when that happens? I wouldn’t mind paying a small subscription to cover compute costs and retain neutrality.
I think people are letting their “Fuck AI” mindset (which I agree with) interfere with the meaning of your post.
AI (all of them) are currently in the “growth at any cost” phase. This is where they burn mountains (and apparently oceans) of cash to get their product in use everywhere they possibly can, and get people hooked on it. Most people around here think that it will never get beyond this point, but let’s play it out anyway.
At some point, everyone selling it needs to start showing a profit. It’s not a cheap venture, and it sure as fuck isn’t being done as some service to humanity. It needs to pay massive dividends to recoup the massive investments.
You’re thinking advertising and the like. I don’t think that’s big enough.
AI, collectively, is a multi-trillion dollar investment. This is built entirely on the promise of eliminating payroll for a fuck-ton of people, more than the trillions it’s costing. Adopters (users) are also expecting to keep that “profit”.
Doctorow’s process of enshittification is that the current phase would be to get businesses hooked at the low price, and fire all of the people that currently do it. Of course, many will, since that is in their short-term interest.
The next phase is to then extract that value as well. I would expect AI to develop complex and expensive licensing models. If it’s saving your company the salary of an $80k/year graphics artist, OpenAI/Anthropic/Microsoft/etc is going to want, and feel entitled, to charge $40k/year for it. And those same businesses will pay, because it’s still cheaper than the real person.
TL;DR: The future of AI is AutoCAD.