Steven Levy, has a good article speculating about the potential enshittification of AI.
When one imagines the enshittification of AI, the first thing that comes to mind is advertising. The nightmare is that AI models will make recommendations based on which companies have paid for placement. That’s not happening now, but AI firms are actively exploring the ad space.
Levy asked Cory Doctorow, who coined the term, and he said (among other things):
Because it’s so hard to see what goes on inside the “black boxes” of LLMs, he says, “they have an ability to disguise their enshittifying in a way that would allow them to get away with an awful lot.” Most of all, he says, the “terrible economics” of the field demand that the companies can’t afford to wait and will enshittify even before they deliver value. “I think they’ll try every sweaty gambit you can imagine as the economics circle the drain,” he said.
You just know Doctorow is right: we'll be getting sold stuff by AI with little visibility in no time. As it is, it's hard to see what the incentive structures are when we ask AI questions, and I have no doubt that moral clarity alone is not enough to deter the leaders of those companies from tapping that keg.
Can AI Avoid the Enshittification Trap?
Cory Doctorow’s theory of “enshittification” explains how tech platforms rot from within. As AI grows more profitable—and powerful—it risks the same fate.