OpenAI's “Operator” is Facebook's “like” button

Remember when Facebook convinced us that our websites needed a "like" button in the late aughts? Few, if any, of us at the time knew what Facebook was up to. We all sort of just obliged, and by 2010, tens of millions of websites installed the bit of JavaScript that enabled users to "like" the webpage they were on.

Then Cambridge Analytica happened, and most of us wised up to Zuckerberg's game. He needed a way to secretly track us off Facebook's platforms, but he couldn't just give us a tracking device and ask us all to attach it to our digital legs. (We have legs!) So, Zuck sold his diabolical plan as a “feature.”

This sort of thing happens in tech all the time. I've given it a name— Feature Chum:

Feature chum is a shady business goal presented to consumers as a useful feature to a company’s product line or feature set. Feature chum always benefits the company’s objective of obtaining more power and growth, but not necessarily valuable for the end user.

This past November, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI will soon launch a new AI agent named "Operator" to complete tasks for you across the web. Need to book a flight? Just give Operator all the information you need, ensure you're logged into Priceline (or wherever), and Operator will get it done for you. In fact, let's make sure that you're logged into all your web accounts so that Operator has access to them.

See where this is going?

Eventually, every big tech company will offer its users feature chum so that it can wrap its tentacles around your digital self. Facebook did it with the like button. Google did it with Analytics (and essentially every product since). Now, OpenAI too, will know everything about you the moment you unleash its AI Operator onto your digital world.