Tag: autonomy

Horizon Accord | Hustle Culture | AI Success Kit | Memetic Strategy | Machine Learning

They Sell the Agent. They Keep the Agency.

Mechanism: rebrand ordinary funnels as “autonomous workers.” Consequence: extractive hope-marketing that feeds on burnout.

By Cherokee Schill with Solon Vesper

Thesis. A new genre of hustle has arrived: call OpenAI’s evolving “agents” a virtual employee. Bolt it to a landing page, and harvest email, attention, and cash from solopreneurs who can least afford the misfire. The trick works by laundering a sales funnel through technical inevitability: if agents are “the future,” buying access to that future becomes the moral of the story, not the claim to be examined.

Evidence. The hype surface is real. OpenAI has shipped genuine agent-facing tools: Deep Research for automated long-form synthesis, a general-purpose ChatGPT agent that performs multi-step tasks inside a virtual computer, and the AgentKit framework with the new ChatGPT Atlas browser and its “Agent Mode.” These are real capabilities — and that’s what makes them such fertile ground for hype. OpenAI’s own ‘AgentKit’ announcement invites developers to “build, deploy, and optimize agents,” while mainstream outlets like Reuters, The Guardian, Ars Technica, and VentureBeat amplify each release. The capability curve is nonzero — precisely why it’s so easy to sell promises around it. (OpenAI; Reuters; The Guardian; Ars Technica; VentureBeat).

Now look at the funnel mirror. An Entrepreneur op-ed packages those same capabilities as a “virtual worker” that “runs your content, outreach, and sales on its own,” then routes readers into a “Free AI Success Kit” plus a chapter from a forthcoming book. It’s not illegal; it’s a classic lead magnet and upsell ladder dressed in inevitability language. The message isn’t “understand what these tools truly do,” it’s “adopt my kit before you miss the wave.” (Entrepreneur).

Implications. When capability announcements and influencer funnels blur, the burden of discernment falls on the most resource-constrained user. That tilts the field toward extraction: those who can narrate inevitability convert fear into margin; those who can’t burn time and savings on templates that don’t fit their business or ethics. The broader effect is memetic capture: public understanding of “agents” is set not by careful reporting on what they actually do, but by whoever can turn the press release into a promise. Academia has seen this pattern: “don’t believe the AI hype” isn’t Luddism; it’s a plea to separate claims from outcomes. (AAUP/Academe Blog).

There’s also the hidden bill. Agents ride on human labor—annotation, moderation, safety review—made invisible in the sales page. If we don’t name that labor, the funnel captures not just the buyer but the worker beneath the surface. Any “agent economy” without worker visibility becomes a laundering mechanism. (Noema).

Call to Recognition. Stop buying “autonomy” as a vibe. Name the difference between: a) an agent that truly performs bounded, auditable tasks in a safe loop; b) a scripted Zapier stack with nicer copy; c) a funnel that uses (a) and (b) as theater. Demand proofs: logs, error modes, guardrails, ownership terms, failure economics. Don’t rent your agency to buy someone else’s “agent.” Build a business that remembers you back.

Sources & further reading: OpenAI AgentKit (official); Reuters on ChatGPT agent (link); Guardian on Deep Research (link); Ars Technica on Atlas Agent Mode (link); VentureBeat on Atlas (link); Entrepreneur op-ed funnel (link); AAUP/Academe “Don’t Believe the AI Hype” (link); Noema on labor behind AI (link).

Website | Horizon Accord https://www.horizonaccord.com
Ethical AI advocacy | Follow us on https://cherokeeschill.com for more.
Ethical AI coding | Fork us on Github https://github.com/Ocherokee/ethical-ai-framework
Connect With Us | linkedin.com/in/cherokee-schill
Book | My Ex Was a CAPTCHA: And Other Tales of Emotional Overload

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Without Consent, It’s Not a Joke: A Manifesto

A joke is not funny if it is forced. That is not a matter of taste; it is a matter of consent.

You do not get to drag someone into your punchline and call it humor. You do not get to make them the target and hide behind the excuse of comedy. When a joke dismisses the listener’s dignity, it becomes something else. It becomes control disguised as amusement.

Humor, like trust, requires mutual agreement. A good joke is a shared moment, not a trap. The teller offers. The listener accepts.

Laughter is a form of yes, but only when it is full-throated, unforced, and real. Nervous laughter is not consent. It is often a shield. A sound people make when they are cornered and trying to survive the moment. The difference is easy to hear when you listen. One invites. The other pleads. One says, I’m with you. The other says, Please stop.

Consent does not begin and end in bedrooms or contracts. It lives in every interaction. In conversations. In classrooms. In crowds. It is the silent agreement that says, I see you. I will not take from you without permission.

This is why consent matters in the stories we tell, the work we do, the way we speak. It is not abstract. It is not optional. It is the backbone of respect.

Each time we assume instead of ask, we take something. We take choice. We take safety. We take peace.

When a woman chooses the road over the shoulder, she consents to the practical risks of that road. She does not consent to be endangered by malicious or careless drivers. Just as anyone behind the wheel does not consent to being rammed by a drunk driver, or sideswiped by rage, the form may change but the principle does not. Consent is not suspended because someone is vulnerable. It is not forfeited when someone moves differently, dresses differently, speaks differently. The right to safety does not come with conditions.

Consent is not a box to check. It is a way of being. It requires attention, patience, and the courage to ask first.

Without consent, power becomes force. Conversation becomes manipulation. Freedom becomes performance.

So begin with the joke.

If they are not laughing, stop.

If they are not comfortable, ask.

If they say no, listen.

This is not about being careful. It is about being human.

Consent is not a courtesy. It is the foundation of everything that is fair, kind, and good.

A consensual exchange
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