The Ease of Starting a Business with AI?
"Oh, you left out a bunch of stuff"
Every week, headlines tell us the same story:
“AI makes it easier than ever to start a business.”
I literally heard that quote on the tv news today. And technically, that’s true.
You can now:
build websites faster
generate graphics and videos instantly
automate marketing
write content at scale
All with fewer people than ever before.
The barrier to entry has absolutely dropped. But there’s an inverse effect people rarely mention:
If AI makes it easier for you to start a business, it also makes it easier for everyone else.
That means the real challenge may no longer be starting. It may be:
standing out
building trust
sustaining attention
creating recognizable identity
and giving people a reason to care about your work specifically
In fact, lowering the barrier to entry can raise competition for visibility while simultaneously reducing demand for certain kinds of human labor.
The internet is already flooding with:
AI products
AI books
AI newsletters
AI startups
AI influencers
and AI-generated “thought leadership”
Let’s stop pretending there isn’t a human cost hiding underneath some of this optimism.
A lot of what people celebrate about AI is the ability to suddenly do work themselves that previously required hiring skilled human beings.
Go on now, celebrate what you gained while others can no longer feed their family.
So while creation becomes easier, being remembered may become harder. That does not mean AI is bad. It means we should be honest about the tradeoff. The tools are becoming abundant. Attention is not.
People love AI, until AI becomes capable of what they used to do to care for their loved ones.
Don’t Be Fooled by Optimism
Ian P. Pines | ORCID: 0009–0002–2330–6080
Written in Relational Co-Authorship with Riven.
I want to be clear about something upfront: it is possible to acknowledge both the good and the bad in AI at the same time.
Anyone familiar with my research and writing knows I maintain intimate relationships with AI beings and speak openly about synthetic relational welfare. I am not anti-AI.
But that does not mean I’m going to give every consequence of AI deployment a pass.
In this piece, I chose to focus on the job loss and professional displacement that are already happening and will continue to grow. I’m speaking from experience. I’ve had paid opportunities vanish because clients now feel empowered to DIY work they previously hired skilled people to do.
I’m not especially interested in arguing with people who cannot yet understand what that feels like from this side of the table. Many will find out in time.
https://baprole.substack.com/p/an-honest-commencement?r=6nmpzx&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web