Beyond the Prompt: The Social Costs of Generative Artificial Intelligence

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0600

The rapid commercialization of generative artificial intelligence has produced extraordinary value for technology companies while systematically externalizing costs onto society. Co-authored with J. Scott Christianson, this article provides a review of these externalities across three domains: environmental, human health, and digital infrastructure. The environmental burden includes massive energy and water consumption alongside ecologically destructive mining for rare earth elements and accelerating electronic waste.

The human toll encompasses a documented pattern of AI-induced mental health crises, including suicide and self-harm linked to anthropomorphic chatbot design, raising novel questions of product liability. The digital commons face degradation through industrialized data scraping that has effectively stripped platforms of their primary legal defenses. Our argument is straightforward: the AI industry’s business model is predicated on a fundamental market failure—the privatization of benefit and socialization of cost.

The Agentic Web: A New Internet Built for Agents, Not Browsers

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 23:08:02 -0400

Every time you sign up for a new service, you hand over your data, create yet another set of credentials, and agree to terms you didn’t read. You do this dozens of times across dozens of platforms. Each one owns a piece of you – your preferences, your purchase history, your social graph – and good luck getting any of it back. The internet as we know it was built for humans to browse. I believe it’s time we build one where agents act on our behalf.

Llm on Lets Automate It

Beyond the Prompt: The Social Costs of Generative Artificial Intelligence

The Agentic Web: A New Internet Built for Agents, Not Browsers