This, after decades of phone trees, mail-in rebates, specialist pre-approvals, and other processes specifically designed to create friction for typical people when interacting with large companies and organizations.

I have no moral judgment here, but it seems like a classic pendulum. Part of the demand for AI is coming because our systems are intentionally friction-filled.

It’s not just the volume, but also the quality of that increased volume, I don’t have the data but would bet it’s actually very time consuming to review that 40% increase (because the content will look plausible and confident but will likely have mistake). I cannot imagine being the poor folks having to process all that

We recently recruited two developers. Our recruitment process involves asking three questions before the interview stage. Almost every single answer was written by AI - they all followed the same format and presented the answer in the same way, customised to the applicant.

It was mind-numbing. The non-ai applicants were obvious and really stood out as the best answers.

Though that friction is paid in human lifespan, unlike a deposit fee that cannot be recovered if your request is found have merit. Additionally the other side often is not incentivized to minimize the friction. So ideally these processes would be less wasteful in the first place, it's just unfortunate that this is forced by unilateral action instead of being arrived at cooperatively.

This is an interesting thought, but perhaps AI is an extension of the general case of the internet itself. Among the examples that come to mind:

1. buying/scalping concert/event tickets: in the past it would have been unrealistic to scalp tickets for faraway venues

2. fraud/identity verification: now anyone can apply for an account in your name anywhere as long as they enough personal information about you without a human confirming you are who you say

3. public shaming/harassment: any moment of yours in public now has a non-zero risk of going public throughout the world

4. spread of conspiracy theories/propaganda: now all the village idiots can find each other