Why is AI free?
If the product is free, YOU are the product
Those who do not study history are destined to repeat it. Similarly, those who do not study how consumer ignorance is abused are likely to become abused consumers themselves.
From the title, you should know that this article is about... Drumroll, please... the great Artificial Intelligence, the preceding age of AI. So let's dive into why I chose to begin this article with history and consumer ignorance
Consumer Ignorance is widely defined as the lack of information or awareness about a product's ingredients, pricing, and/or buyer rights. When it comes to AI, this same issue is termed “artificial ignorance”. In simple terms, this refers to the critical gap where consumers use AI on a daily basis but continue to remain unaware of its underlying mechanics, ethical implications, and data privacy risks.
History is extremely essential to know in this case, to solely understand why we can't let history repeat itself. Knowing history allows us to examine historical instances and reveal patterns where big corporations have prioritized their own profit over their consumers. We are the consumers, unaware, uninformed, as we gradually let AI seep into integral parts of our lives.
In order to tell this story, I will refer to one of the most notorious cases of consumer abuse in all of history, the Nestle Infant Formula Tragedy.
Nestle Infant Formula Tragedy:
Back in the 1990s, Nestle noticed that its consumer base in the United States for its baby formula was shrinking significantly. As a solution to that, they decided, instead of trying to reformulate their baby formula or make their product better equipped to meet the needs of the infants and their mothers in the United States, to simply shift their focus and target to Africa as their vital consumer base.
They sent in Nestle workers dressed as trained nurses to hospitals, clinics, and maternity wards to distribute Nestle baby formula to these mothers with newborns. These workers also coaxed these mothers into thinking baby formula is much better for the growth of these infants compared to breastmilk. Most of these women were illiterate. These ordinary underprivileged women, who had little to no awareness about the ulterior
motive of this seemingly kind gesture, used the formula. Turns out, each of these mothers was supplied with just enough formula to last them till their biological milk production stops. As a result, they were left with nothing but baby formula and dirty water (clean drinking water wasn't abundantly available) to feed their new born children. This led to mass infanticide.
Nestle was responsible for an estimated ten million infant deaths. After worldwide criticism, Nestle’s defence was that they believe breastfeeding is best for growing children. However, for any reason, if the mothers cannot feed their baby naturally, they should use nutritional milk or mixed food instead.
What relevance does this have to AI?
AI today is free for the exact reason the baby formula samples were free for the African mothers. There are already multiple studies that have shown that continued and constant use of AI leads to cognitive decline. These users will gradually but surely run out of the ability to think for themselves, decide for themselves, research for themselves, and read & write for themselves. Further down the way, when we become even more reliant on AI to do our tasks for us, when we have basically lost the ability to do any of it for ourselves, when we practically cannot survive without AI, is when they pull the plug, that is, to paywall them. Big names in this field have stated how they think “intelligence will become an utility just like electricity and water.”
So... why is AI free?
Because we are not paying with money. We are paying it with our data, our records, our research work, our ways of thinking, our emotions, and mainly our intelligence, which we unknowingly use to train the AI models to become even more advanced AI cannot be stated as inherently good or bad. It is one of the most powerful tools humanity has ever created. But have we ever thought about how they were created? Due to man’s own intelligence. The same ability that we are trading away for our “convenience in life.”
Maybe the actual question that we should ask ourselves is,
“Is our intelligence worth the convenience we are trading it for?”
This is a very popular picture that comes up in the debate on AI. Hundreds of thousands of shares and reposts later, we can confirm that the writer has caught on to everything that is wrong with AI in a single sentence. The “artificial intelligence” is supposed to help us in our jobs, not take those jobs away from us.
A very simple real-life example is of the “Ghibli trend” that surfaced on the internet recently. Users seemed to use AI to transfer their own real-life photographs into the very popular Ghibli art style. Studio Ghibli is a legendary art style, created by Hayao Miyazaki, renowned worldwide for its stunning two-dimentional hand drawn art. This art, which needed the artist years to perfect, was diminished to a sentence-long prompt to create an ai generated picture that would be forgotten about in a matter of days.
When people try to defend the integrity of these trends that utilise AI unnecessarily, they often argue that it makes the art more accessible. Our generation is slowly forgetting the beauty of art, and how rare it is to create a single piece of art.
From a young age, I was consistently urged by my elders to remain inquisitive, to investigate, and to challenge everything with questions. They taught me that knowledge is the singular human possession that remains beyond the reach of others, yet we are the only ones capable of surrendering it. Let's be realistic, we can't stop the use of AI. The algorithms and AI models are getting even more advanced as I write this. Everything from researching for a project, writing code, editing a picture, creating a video, to speaking about our deepest, darkest thoughts is being done with the use of AI.
However, while we cannot stop the progress of these technologies, we can choose to engage with them mindfully. By maintaining our critical thinking skills, questioning the narratives
we are fed, and consciously limiting our dependency on these tools for essential yet basic human tasks, we can ensure that AI serves us rather than the other way around.
The choice remains ours, to use these tools as a supplement, not a substitute, for our own intelligence and independence.
Bibliography:
● Artificial intelligence and consumer protection (unctad.org)
● Corporate captivity and artificial intelligence ( by skyfishing on
substack.com)
● Nestle infant formula controversy(scribd.com)
● Why is ai free? (article by Anubhav Gupta)
● AI and it’s consequences (wikipedia.com)
Oorvija Sil
BCA( 2024-28)