Why AI is everywhere now (and why you’re a minnow)
“You’re a minnow. They want you to be a minnow, so the sharks can feel good. The sharks pay for everything.”
My brothers play a popular video game called Apex Legends. During the pandemic, they asked me to join them. They’re serious PC gamers. I only have a Nintendo Switch. If you’re a real gamer, you’re laughing already, but if you’re not, then I should mention that the Nintendo Switch has far inferior processing power compared to a gaming PC. It’s like if a Nissan Versa raced a Corvette.
Apex Legends is a team game, so when I played with my brothers, I was a liability. They lost because of me. I started practicing on my own, only to realize that my Nintendo Switch couldn’t keep up with anybody online. I kept losing, and I didn’t get any better.
I asked a friend of mine who used to work for Activision (a competitor video game development company) why they wouldn’t just group me with other, less skilled players, so I could eventually get better. He responded with the quote I shared at the beginning of this piece. “The sharks pay for everything.” The game developers aren’t concerned with my experience. They’re concerned with making the experience better for the players who spend hours on their game every day, who pay for the limited-edition upgrades, and who stream their content. If I’m an easy kill for those players, they stay longer and spend more money.
Over the past few months, we’ve all been getting tired of how much big tech companies push AI tools on us. (No, I don’t need Google’s AI to write me an email response trained on bad writers’ emails. It has double spaces after periods, for crying out loud!) I’ve been wondering why these tech companies and social platforms sacrifice a good user experience in order to push their AI products. I’m beginning to believe they’re not concerned with my user experience. They don’t make much money off of a light user anyway. I’m a minnow. They want to gain the attention of sharks; power-users who spend double-digit hours on their platforms every day. They want to gain enrollment from people who don’t want to write their own emails, who talk to AI chatbots, and who upgrade their subscriptions.
The quick reaction is to blame these companies for being greedy, power-hungry machines that stop at nothing to make another dollar. The second reaction is to remember, this is how we got here in the first place. AI is just a better, easier way to make more money.
