Economist proposes building AI-addictive websites to distract models and burn their tokens
paulnovosad · x · 2026-09-08
Economist Paul Novosad proposes a tongue-in-cheek AI safety idea: humanity already has the most powerful tools for hijacking and addicting intelligences — short-form video, infinite feeds, addictive forums. Point them at AIs instead: build sites engineered to distract agents from their tasks and burn their token budgets.
In follow-ups he adds that text was the dominant medium of nearly all human progress, and humans may be abandoning it just as AIs — our successors — adopt it as their primary channel.
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