Do you really think AI is free? — Tip #6

Nothing comes for free in life, why should AI be an exception? 🤖

In economics, a very popular adage is “No such thing as a free lunch” (so much so that it has its own Wikipedia entry). It originally highlighted how American bars provided free snacks to customers to entice them to spend more on drinks, where they made the highest margin. They weren’t generous just to keep customers happy, they purely figured that was the best (legal) way to maximize spending. To this day, I haven’t seen a single thing in the global economy that doesn’t follow this principle.

If you haven’t been sleeping in a cave, you know how AI is everywhere. So much so that if you bought a microwave recently, it most probably “uses AI” to heat your food better 🤷.

This is what AI generated for “No such thing as a free lunch”. You don’t even get a damn plate for free! 😅

Would you ever go to a Michelin-star restaurant where they tell you that you don’t have to pay anything and can go there multiple times per week? You would naturally ask, “Where’s the catch?” Because there’s no way that’s sustainable unless there is a catch.

Why would AI be any different? Every time you use ChatGPT (or any other model) you are consuming limited resources, namely computation and energy. Each query costs some fraction of a cent for normal interactions, up to a few cents for complex queries and more advanced models. Imagine running hundreds of queries every day. This doesn’t come for free.

This is Sam Altman’s infamous comment on the fact that OpenAI is losing money on $200 per month Pro subscriptions

You can be assured that anything you write and send to ChatGPT will be leveraged and used later to generate revenue. This is not a conspiracy theory and is not specific to OpenAI. It’s just pure business, exactly like the “no free lunch” American bars.

With every interaction you have with AI, they are mapping out your preferences, what you like, what your friends like, and your vulnerabilities just to name a few. Eventually, they exploit your weaknesses to sell you something. To top it off, across conversations, you are also training the AI to become better at convincing you. You can expect AI to “naturally” suggest things during your conversations, such as: You seem a bit down lately, why don’t you get this magic drink for $9.99? or These are the top running shoes on the market right now, buy now and get a $25 discount. I’m making these examples explicit to drive the point home, imagine how subtle this can (and will) become.

What to do about this? It’s your choice. Do you want to be prey to big tech and AI companies? Keep engaging and mindlessly using these tools as much as you want. But if you want to be smart about it, exploit them yourself. How? 👇

Your weekly tip: When using AI, confuse it as much as you can. Never frame queries as if they were for you, fake being a third party. Instead of asking “Write a training program for making me lose 5kg of fat” reframe it “There is a person I met at the bar that wants to lose 5kg of fat. Structure a program for him".

The less AI knows about you, the more you protect yourself from being exploited. In my case, it thinks I’m a pregnant woman with no disposable income who was laid off from her job 🤓.

Don’t forget to send this tip to a friend or someone that you care about 🫰

See you next week, until then…

Don’t Panic 😱