When Tools Become Masters
May 5, 2025
A few quick notes from the intersection of AI, marketing, branding, and small business.
AI Dystopia? I watched Nicholas Thompson’s “The Most Interesting Thing in Tech” post on LinkedIn last week about what he referred to as “AI dystopia.” His worry revolves around this question: Will the things we think of now as AI tools become ever more sophisticated ways to extract money from us while at the same time convincing us that we only need AI companionship to be contented? Meanwhile at the Hardfork podcast, Casey and Kevin drop into Mark Zuckerberg shaming (I won’t object!) because (1) he allegedly pushed for easing the sex chats (or is that just plain sex?) even minors could have with their chatbot, and (2) it looks like he sees a positive Meta future for investors where chatbots substitute as friends to a greater and greater degree. And that’s not where it ends. When you talk to Claude about your issues now, you know you’re talking to Claude. Or you should. In the near future, you likely won’t know whether your interacting with a human or a bot.
Seemed like a legit topic for this space. I mean, in the future are small businesses going to have to work closely with, and pay lots of money to, AI companies in order to get their brand messages out and, ultimately, sell products? Is your AI friend really just a sophisticated salesperson? Isn’t that sort of friend really called a con artist or scammer? So of course I turned to AI to ask about this. What follows is my question and Claude’s response (no edits to either), which is indeed dystopian but ends (innocently or cynically?) with some hope and a call to action for us all. Do you buy it?
After watching Thompson’s post, I immediately went to Claude and asked this question: “As you know, many many people these days are talking about AI as a tool. A tool like a hammer, or like Photoshop, or like a computer. However, you have to buy those tools, either outright or via subscription. Now I know you have to pay a subscription to use the advanced AI models—I pay a subscription to use Claude—but to make the recent investments in AI companies and extreme valuations make sense, AI companies are going to have to find other ways to monetize their products. All of a sudden, the "tool" we thought we had is extracting money from us by way of ads or using our self-created content or by using data collected from the chats we have and projects we work on. First, do you agree with this assessment? Second, can you write a 600-word blog post about this coming phenomenon? In the post, please include thoughts about social worlds that may be created where people feel like they have less need for actual, physical human friendships.”
The Shifting Economics of AI. We've become accustomed to describing artificial intelligence as "just a tool" – a sophisticated hammer for the digital age. This framing feels comfortable, placing AI firmly within our control as we wield it to accomplish our goals. But this analogy may soon prove inadequate as AI business models evolve beyond simple subscriptions.
Beyond the subscription model. The astronomical valuations of leading AI companies reveal a fundamental truth: investors expect returns far exceeding what subscription fees alone can generate. For context, OpenAI's valuation has reportedly approached $100 billion, while Anthropic has secured billions in funding. These numbers demand additional revenue streams. What might these new monetization strategies look like? The digital economy offers concerning precedents.
Social media platforms began as free tools connecting people, but gradually transformed into sophisticated data harvesting and advertising machines. Search engines evolved from simple information retrieval systems into behavioral prediction engines. In both cases, users were commodified – their attention, data, and content becoming the true product. AI follows a similar trajectory. The initial subscription model resembles early software licensing, but as these systems develop deeper relationships with users, collect more data, and generate more content, the temptation to monetize these aspects grows irresistible.
The Commodification of Creativity. AI tools already analyze our prompts, store our conversations, and learn from our creative output. The content we co-create with AI exists in a murky ownership territory. As users, we may see ourselves as the primary creators, with AI as our assistant. But from a business perspective, those interactions represent valuable data.
This user-generated content becomes particularly valuable as training data for future AI iterations. Your creative writing prompts, marketing campaigns, and personal reflections might all feed back into improving systems you'll later pay to access – creating a scenario where users effectively subsidize development twice: once through their subscription fees and again through their intellectual contributions.
The Social Dimension: Digital Companions. Perhaps most concerning is the potential social impact as AI evolves from tool to companion. We've already witnessed the emergence of "relationship simulators" and AI companions marketed to address loneliness. These products suggest a future where our most intimate conversations might become monetizable data points.
As AI becomes more sophisticated at simulating empathy and understanding, the line between tool and relationship blurs. For many, the convenience of an always-available, judgment-free digital companion might outweigh the decreasing incentive to maintain human connections, which require reciprocity, vulnerability, and compromise.
This shift threatens to accelerate existing trends toward social isolation. Human relationships, with all their messiness and unpredictability, might increasingly seem like high-effort alternatives to algorithmic companions that remember our preferences perfectly and never have needs of their own.
Reclaiming Agency. The transition from "AI as tool" to "AI as monetization platform" isn't inevitable, but it requires vigilance. As users, we must demand transparency about how our data and creative content are used. Policymakers need to establish clear boundaries around data ownership and algorithmic training practices. Most importantly, we must preserve spaces for authentic human connection that exist outside algorithmic mediation. The richness of human relationships – their unpredictability, challenges, and growth opportunities – provides nourishment that perfectly optimized digital interactions cannot replicate.
In embracing AI as a creative and productive partner, we shouldn't surrender our agency as creators, consumers, or social beings. The tools we create should enhance our humanity, not extract value from it. As we navigate this evolving landscape, the question isn't whether AI will remain "just a tool," but whether we can maintain our position as the toolmakers and masters of our technological future.
