Frankly, Everything is AI

Become an annual paid subscriber and I will send you a hat.

As I think about this topic, I’m singing “Everything is AI” to the tune of “Everything is Awesome” from The Lego Movie.

We’re surrounded by AI in our lives, and most of the time we don’t even notice it. All over social media there are straight-up AI accounts. I see people argue on some of my posts, and all I can think is “you’re arguing with a bot.” And sometimes I think “what if there are multiple bots arguing with each other?”

It’s dead internet theory happening in front of my eyes. If you aren’t sure what dead internet theory is, here is an ironic AI definition: “The dead internet theory is an online concept suggesting that the internet is no longer driven primarily by humans, but by automated bots, algorithmic curation, and synthetic, AI-generated content.”

Share

This is happening outside of social media too. If you need to get in contact with customer service, you’re either engaging with an automated phone system or a chatbot. Neither of them can do what you need, nor can they actually do the job of a real human. But we have to get through this first line of nonsense while we scream into the void that we need a representative.

Companies are firing entire departments because AI can do the job more cheaply. The problem is that AI can’t do the job better or even correctly in a lot of cases. They’re trying to force employees to use it because they’re spending so much money on it with the end goal of being able to fire those same employees. It’s the same idea of training the person who will replace you.

On top of all of that, companies are just pivoting to AI. Do you remember the Allbirds news? Allbirds was a shoe company that sold its brand and IP to American Exchange Group. Then they decided to pivot to AI, whatever the hell that actually means. The stock jumped on that news and has since dropped.

Share Frank Takes by Frank Frankly

I had also been researching Napster for a different project, and was disappointed to find out that not only are they still around, but they’ve jumped all aboard the AI train.

For those of you who remember Napster, I’m sure you have fond memories of downloading music, maybe even burning them onto CDs. It was a great way to learn about new bands, and all for free. If you don’t know Napster, it was a peer-to-peer file-sharing service for people to download and upload mp3 and other files.

It was inevitable that they were doomed from the start, no thanks to the greedy artists from Metallica and record labels who decided to file lawsuits. Napster filed for bankruptcy after two short years of existence, but was the stepping stone for modern-day streaming services.

To my surprise, Napster is still a company. For a while they tried to become a legit streaming service. They have been bought and sold several times, the most recent being in 2025.

After that most recent sale, they pivoted to AI. They originally built AI agents to help musicians, and since then have added these agents to help any business across any industry.

They’re AI agents that you can have conversations with. You log in and there is an avatar on the other side that you talk with. It’s insane.

I pulled this from their website: “Napster Learn turns your top performers into AI agents that train, coach, and mentor your entire workforce. Every employee gets a personal expert. Every language. Every time zone.”

Not only does this hit my earlier point of training your replacement, but I can’t even comprehend how talking to an AI avatar is better than talking to a human. Are companies going to have their most senior employees enter all of their knowledge into a product like this, fire them, and then use this tool to train entry-level employees to do the job for way less money?

And how are people going to handle AI avatars they can have a conversation with? People already have romantic relationships with AI chatbots. Products like this are going to make it worse.

Is this a product that can last? Time will tell. Napster’s parent company, Infinite Reality, is already part of a federal investigation. But even if the company fails, like it did once before, what they’re building is a preview of where AI is headed. Not just text conversations, but talking to an avatar that’s basically you, or whoever you want it to be. Future generations will become even less social than they are now.

Frankly, AI should be a useful tool in life, not something that should be replacing people in any capacity.