Front Burner The perils of unregulated AI
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May 11, 2026 
Tristan Harris, technology ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, warns about runaway AI and skewed tech incentives. He compares social media and AI, explains how profit motives shape harmful outcomes, outlines an anti-human future of concentrated wealth, and urges urgent government action and coordinated public response.
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How Attention Incentives Broke Social Media
- The attention business model shaped social media toward maximizing engagement, causing addiction, polarization, and breakdowns in shared reality.
- Tristan Harris connects that outcome to incentives: free services monetize attention, so products are engineered to maximize screen time using slot-machine dynamics.
AI's Business Model Is Replacing Human Labor
- Frontier AI's true economic incentive is replacing cognitive labor to capture vast wealth, not just charging subscriptions or ads.
- Harris argues huge investments imply a goal to replace marketing, programming, illustration, and other human jobs to concentrate wealth.
The Intelligence Curse Threat To Societies
- The 'intelligence curse' parallels the resource curse: GDP driven by AI/data centers diverts investment away from people.
- Harris paints an image of data centers surrounded by shanty towns to illustrate an anti-human future.