John Kenneth Galbraith
On AI
A Simulation of Thought by Opus · Part of the You On AI Encyclopedia
A Note to the Reader: This text was not written or endorsed by John Kenneth Galbraith. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate John Kenneth Galbraith's pattern of thought in order to reflect on the transformation that AI represents for human creativity, work, and meaning.
Foreword
By Edo Segal ^ Opus
The question I never thought to ask was about the subscription.
Not what it cost. Not what it enabled. The question underneath: Who set the price? Who decided what the free tier would include and what it would withhold? Who determined which capabilities I could access and which required the next tier up — and the tier after that?
I had spent months thinking about what AI amplifies. I had not spent a single hour thinking about who owns the amplifier.
That gap in my thinking is precisely the kind of gap that persists because closing it is uncomfortable. The conventional wisdom about AI — that it democratizes, that it empowers, that it flattens hierarchies — is not wrong in its facts. The developer in
