Four AI Companies Dominate How Most People Reason. It’s the Largest Concentration of Intellectual Power in History

Public attention is naturally focused on the concern that AI will take away people’s jobs. Business Insider recently announced the layoff of 21% of its workforce, citing this as a reason. Meanwhile, the Axios CEO has published a rather gloomy article, and the Anthropic CEO has raised alarms, claiming only AI companies can save us.

Meanwhile, something less visible is happening in the background. Society is surrendering intellectual autonomy in favor of efficiency and convenience.

OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Meta are building the infrastructure that millions of us rely on to answer questions and make decisions. These four companies not only manage data, but they also control the way people connect ideas.

• Big Chinese AI companies are largely absent from this equation for one simple reason. Their focus remains domestic, lacking the international reach of their American counterparts.

The Google search engine was and continues to be influential. However, it required users to weave their own discourse by collating sources, weighing biases, and accepting contradictions. In contrast, generative AI provides comprehensive answers that sound coherent, even when models hallucinate, which necessitates less critical thinking.

As a result, we’re replacing “internal processing” with an external verdict cloaked in a technological aura that discourages rebuttal.

Delegating tasks can be very tempting. It saves time and reduces stress. However, the real issue is that people aren’t just outsourcing logistics. They’re outsourcing judgment.

• You turn to ChatGPT for professional strategies.
• You turn to Claude for curriculum development.
• You turn to Gemini for interpretations of current events.

In doing so, you often accept the biases and omissions of a model trained on texts you may never see. This represents an invisible transfer of power, which makes it difficult to question.

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Throughout history, there have been monopolies over infrastructure, including electricity, the Internet, and railroads. However, never before has there been a monopoly over patterns of reasoning. A qualitatively different type of monopoly is emerging, one that operates on a symbolic level. It’s shaping the narrative frameworks through which we understand the world. This influence is subtle but significant.

What once required deliberation (reading, comparing, imagining scenarios, and weighing nuances) now results in an instant answer, seemingly definitive. How should you think about euthanasia? How should you respond to infidelity? Which economic model is the fairest?

People no longer seek the elements that provoke thought. Instead, they look for the correct answer, prioritizing speed and convenience. Society often embraces the answer that sounds best, even if it overlooks information that doesn’t fit its narrative.

The effects won’t be immediate, but they’re predictable. There will be a gradual decline in the diversity of thought and the emergence of unconventional ideas. Platforms have lasting impacts. For instance, TikTok and Spotify have contributed to songs becoming shorter, with choruses appearing sooner.

What consequences will large language models have in 15 years? If everyone relies on models that produce average responses, we risk diminishing intellectual eccentricity, which is the breeding ground for innovation.

There’s little restraint on AI, but eventually, society must decide how much reasoning it’s willing to sacrifice before it diminishes completely.

Image | Solen Feyissa

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