From Vox · Ariana Aspuru · · 3m
AI agents will make shopping worse, not better
As AI agents flood the market, they threaten to turn consumer chaos into something far more destructive: an economy that moves at machine speed.
In brief
As AI agents flood the market, they threaten to turn consumer chaos into something far more destructive: an economy that moves at machine speed. AI agents designed to automate tedious consumer tasks will likely worsen the rage economy by creating inhuman burdens on those without agents and destabilizing markets…
The rage economy is here
Nearly eighty percent of Americans encountered a product or service problem in the past year, and nearly two-thirds experienced rage trying to resolve it, according to the National Customer Rage Survey.
High prices and bad service collide
Inflation has made everyday products unaffordable while customer service has deteriorated, creating an economy where high costs meet terrible experiences and unhelpful chatbots.
AI companies promise a solution
AI agents are being promoted as the answer: automated assistants that can handle tedious tasks like waiting on hold or dealing with unhelpful chatbots on your behalf.
Charlie Warzel's warning
Atlantic staff writer Charlie Warzel argues that AI agents will make the rage economy worse in the early stages by flooding systems with relentless, inhuman persistence.
Agents are already overwhelming systems
AI agents are flooding call centers, restaurant reservations, and small business requests with queries. They create inhuman burdens on people who do not yet have agents working for them.
“These are relentless things that are tasked to do the onerous activities that we don't want to do.”
The economy is built on inefficiency
The current economy thrives because people do not pay perfect attention to everything. The subscription economy exists because people forget to cancel unused services.
Perfect attention creates chaos
AI agents offer hypervigilance and inhuman speed. If millions use them for banking and e-commerce simultaneously, prices could fluctuate like stock markets, measured in milliseconds.
“I don't know if we want diapers to behave like securities.”
The agentic bank run scenario
If five million people use the same agent and all identify a high-yield savings account simultaneously, millions of agents could move money en masse, causing banks to lose deposits at once.
Companies are building their own agents
Retailers like Amazon are blocking some agents from their platforms to protect corporate secrets like inventory data. This is becoming an arms race between consumer and corporate AI.
Companies will set the terms
Retailers will eventually demand that AI agent companies accept restrictions on pricing and access. Consumers may feel frictionless convenience while companies protect their interests first.
Meta Muse's antisocial promise
Meta, with Muse, dominates AI assistant conversation. Yet Warzel notes this tool is fundamentally antisocial, automating away the human interactions that are foundational to humanity.
“This is a tool that is fundamentally antisocial.”
The unanswered question of freed time
AI companies promise time freed from tedious tasks, but offer no vision for what humans will do with it. The risk is more time scrolling platforms or working, not meaningful living.
A future without friction or meaning
The AI agent future suggests never having to do anything you do not want to do. But Warzel questions whether companies have thought through what a human is for in a fully automated world.
What it means
AI agents designed to automate tedious consumer tasks will likely worsen the rage economy by creating inhuman burdens on those without agents and destabilizing markets through coordinated machine action.
