I just provided a long-term customer with a repair quote for one of their properties. He told me last week I would receive a purchase order this Monday. Monday, I received an email inviting me to navigate their new portal that is an AI agent "negotiation" portal, and once I was through that, I would get my PO. Reading the front end of the negotiation portal, it noted how it's job to help ensure my company is operating tightly and how it's going to help me remain competitive, etc. Just a bunch of bullshit on how a rough ridin' bot is about to knee cap me.
I used to spend a decent amount of time listening to podcasts about what the possible effects AI will have on society, politics, science, etc. Those podcasts spent a lot of time concerned with the race to AGI and how the first country to get it will basically be able to take advantage over those without, nearly immediately, in such a way that we should consider it one of the highest national security priorities.
I think we are about to see that play out but in the biz world. Big companies that can afford the AI agents now are about to take huge advantage over smaller companies who can't afford it, don't have a product on the market that fits them yet, or who don't want to work with it. They will also take large advantage of their customers via even more data analytics and targeting(I know this has been happening, but I think it's about to get a much finer edge).
How long until all companies can afford an AI negotiation bot? How long until all of our transactions are just two computers yelling at each other? The cat and mouse of it all is going to raise prices, similar to medical insurance, where I submit a higher quote than normal to land where I want to after the AI bot negotiation.
Given the seeming enshitification of much of the rest of the digital world, is this ultimately what AI will deliver? Not shorter work weeks or better science, but more bullshit and higher prices? I think so.
