The Force-Feeding of AI on an Unwilling Public
This isn't innovation, it's tyranny
A few months ago, I needed to send an email. But when I opened Microsoft Outlook, something had changed.
Microsoft asked me to use Copilot to write my email. Copilot is my AI companion. (That’s the cute word they use.)
Hey I don’t want a companion—especially not a fake AI buddy. I never asked for this.
And what about the people receiving my emails? They don’t want this either. They want to hear from me, not a bot.
How do I turn my companion off?
Please support my work by taking out a premium subscription—for just $6 per month (even less if you sign up for a year).
After some trial-and-error, I found a way to disable Copilot. Phew!
But a few days later, Microsoft surprised me again. It wouldn’t let me save an Excel file until I had agreed to new terms for my software account.
Guess what? AI is now bundled into all of my Microsoft software.
Even worse, Microsoft recently raised the price of its subscriptions by $3 per month to cover the additional AI benefits. I get to use my AI companion 60 times per month as part of the deal.
But I don’t want to use it. I want to kill it.
As you can see, I’ve never used this service. I still have all 60 credits unused. But I’m paying for it—because it’s now embedded into Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.
This is how AI gets introduced to the marketplace—by force-feeding the public. And they’re doing this for a very good reason.
Most people won’t pay for AI voluntarily—just 8% according to a recent survey. So they need to bundle it with some other essential product.
You never get to decide.
Before proceeding let me ask a simple question: Has there ever been a major innovation that helped society, but only 8% of the public would pay for it?
That’s never happened before in human history. Everybody wanted electricity in their homes. Everybody wanted a radio. Everybody wanted a phone. Everybody wanted a refrigerator. Everybody wanted a TV set. Everybody wanted the Internet.
They wanted it. They paid for it. They enjoyed it.
AI isn’t like that. People distrust it or even hate it—and more so with each passing month. So the purveyors must bundle it into current offerings, and force usage that way.
“That’s the blight of the AI revolution. It looks like spam. It smells like spam. It tastes like spam.”
There’s another reason why huge tech companies do this—but they don’t like to talk about it. If they bundle AI into other products and services, they can hide the losses on their income statement.
That wouldn’t be possible if they charged for AI as a standalone product. That would make its profitability (or, more likely, loss) very easy to measure.
Shareholders would complain. Stock prices would drop. Companies would be forced to address customer concerns.
But if AI is bundled into existing businesses, Silicon Valley CEOs can pretend that AI is a moneymaker, even if the public is lukewarm or hostile.
It’s like a restaurant selling granite rocks for dessert. Nobody will buy them or eat them—so the product fails miserably. But if a popular restaurant adds a dollar to the meal price, and gives every customer a rock with their bill—well, then they can say that:
Every customer gets rocks for dessert.
Every customer pays for it.
Their business is more profitable because of the tasty granite rocks.
This is how AI accounting works in Silicon Valley.
“The AI business model would collapse overnight if they needed consumer opt-in. Just pass that law, and see how quickly the bots disappear. ”
And that’s why Google does something similar to Microsoft. They add AI to search results—you don’t get to choose. It’s force-feeding all over again.
So these huge digital platforms can pretend that users have totally embraced the new tech. Shut up, buddy, and chew on your rock.
This is how AI gets implemented everywhere.
You don’t get to choose. You’re never asked. It just shows up. Now you have to deal with it.
I don’t want AI customer service—but I don’t get a choice.
I don’t want AI responses to my Google searches—but I don’t get a choice.
I don’t want AI integrated into my software—but I don’t get a choice.
I don’t want AI sending me emails—but I don’t get a choice.
I don’t want AI music on Spotify—but I don’t get a choice.
I don’t want AI books on Amazon—but I don’t get a choice.
If they gave people a choice, they would reject this tyranny masquerading as innovation.
The AI business model would collapse overnight if they needed consumer opt-in.
Just pass that law, and see how quickly the bots disappear.
Customer surveys prove that. The survey cited above presented customers with descriptions of different refrigerators. When AI was added as a feature, people showed a preference for all the other models.
The Wall Street Journal concludes that companies should “beware of promoting AI in products.”
And it’s more than just products and services. People don’t even want AI in texts or documents of any sort.
In an earlier day, customer feedback would discourage businesses from adding AI. But the dominant AI companies are huge quasi-monopolies. So they don’t ask, they don’t care—they just do it.
Every day it gets more brazen.
Meta is now planning to unleash bots on you in even more aggressive ways than Google or Microsoft. They are training AI bots to send you messages, whether you want them or not. And I know (from painful personal experience) that you cannot disable Facebook Messenger without shutting down your entire Facebook account.
There’s a word for this. It’s called spam—and people hate it.
But that’s the blight of the AI revolution. It looks like spam. It smells like spam. It tastes like spam.
What happens if we decide to boycott AI? The sad truth is that we can’t. It’s already too powerful.
If I wanted to boycott AI, I would need to give up
My email account
All Google searches
My word processing software
Also Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
Amazon and many other online retailers
Spotify and any other music streamer that allows it
Contacting customer service at many companies
Etc. etc. etc.
That’s bad news—because most of us need some of those things to live and work. But it will soon get much worse. Just wait and see.
The day will eventually come when…
You want to see a doctor or nurse—but you will be forced to use the AI chatbot.
You will desperately need counseling, but only AI will be available.
You seek legal advice, and just get a bot.
You apply for a job, but they give it to a bot instead.
You need an emergency responder—police, firefighter, paramedic—but you can only reach a bot.
We already know that they won’t let us choose. That’s already decided. So now the only question is how quickly they will remove the few remaining instances where humans deal with humans.
Judging by the current situation, tech companies will move quickly. They don’t ask for permission. It just happens.
What’s most shocking is that they have done all this before making AI reliable. Every day I hear accounts of stupid and ridiculous things coming from bots. You would think they would fix this mess before forcing AI on us.
But here’s the harsh reality. They won’t fix it, because they don’t know how. Despite that, they will accelerate the force-feeding.
There should be laws against this.
There should be transparency laws. There should be opt-in laws. There should be liability laws. There should be IP laws.
We’re lucky that AI bots don’t write the laws—at least not yet. We should take action before that happens. And if politicians won’t act, let’s turn to voter initiatives (which are binding in many places) or class-action suits or take other steps.
I have a hunch that juries will be sympathetic to our plight. After all, they are getting force-fed too.
Let me address a final question—which is the frequently mentioned argument that the US needs to develop AI as fast as possible to get there before the Chinese.
I’m not sure where there is. But I’m happy to let China or other countries arrive at that unhappy destination while I wait behind and watch.
I’m absolutely certain that getting there will be a matter of great regret. There might even be the last place you would want to be. So I’d rather it happened as far away from here as possible.
Ted, you called it "spam." My term for it is far less polite.
I'm off all social media. I refuse to use AI for my writing. When AI "overviews" come up on Google searches, I immediately skip past them to real sources.
I opt out as much as one individual can.
There are free alternatives to Microsoft Office and they don't have AI.