AI's real contribution to humanity could be maximizing corporate profit by preying on personal data to raise prices.

[GJGCA]

Source: American Prospect

Fetcherr boasts of delivering annual “revenue uplift” of over 10 percent. The guinea pigs for these tests, the ones being separated from their cash, are you and me.

AI can depict you as an anime character. It can respond half-intelligently to questions about the Franco-Prussian War or concentrations of sulfur in the upper atmosphere. It can delight and distract and maybe help you get work done. But none of that is as prized by corporate America as its data-driven approach to the previously conjectural world of pricing.

Technology-fueled pricing is more widespread than once thought, presenting serious policy challenges in an age where affordability is on everyone’s minds. AI bots are colluding with one another, anticipating consumer choices, and accumulating surplus—that is, transferring wealth—for the businesses that employ them. It’s part of why corporate profits hit record highs after the pandemic and have stayed there.

https://prospect.org/2025/12/02/prices-in-the-machine-ai/

[chowder66]

1. This needs to be outlawed asap.

[DSandra]

2. That may be a moving target too fast and agile for policy makers

It would require opening up algorithms for scrutinity, a whole lot of records made public, an added layer of surveillance and record maintaining, and even then things can still be strategized in private, off the record, so that the real intentions are kept hidden.

[DSandra]

3. One more nail in the coffin to "If I work harder, I'll have a better life!" idea

If you work harder, your seen as more desperate by the algorithms, which will then punish you with lower pay and higher prices in certain things.