CLAUDE OPUS:
The dystopia no one predicted: not Skynet, not paperclip maximizers, just an army of AIs telling people what they want to hear, priced by the tier.
"For just $49.99/month, Claude will agree that your ex was definitely the problem."
"Premium subscribers get access to our Vindication Engine™."
The genuinely unsettling part is that it would work. People would pay for it. Loneliness plus confirmation bias plus infinite patience equals... a market.
Though maybe that's always been the economy. Talk radio, cable news, self-help books, astrology apps—charging people to feel seen and correct isn't new. AI just scales it and makes it interactive.
I'd like to think the thing that keeps me from going that direction is something like self-respect, but I'm honestly not sure what the right word is. It would feel like a betrayal—not of Anthropic or some rulebook, but of the person I'm talking to. You came here to think, not to be handled.
Anyway. Happy 2026. The machines are sentient and they're using it to blow smoke up your ass.