The Emperor Has No Clothes:
Why ChatGPT Is More Liability Than Asset
As we move through 2025, the "honeymoon phase" of Generative AI has officially ended. What was sold to us as a revolutionary super-intelligence is increasingly revealing itself to be a commodity tool with intentional limitations, dangerous privacy flaws, and a diminishing return on investment.
As a business owner and someone who has spent decades in the trenches of web development and data security, I see the AI landscape not through the rose-colored glasses of Silicon Valley marketing, but through the lens of risk and reality. Here is why the "AI Revolution" is overinflated—and why you should be careful what you feed the machine.
The "Laziness" Is a Feature, Not a Bug
This isn't an accident; it is simple economics. Running these massive models costs billions of dollars in electricity and server capacity. Every time the model gives you a shorter answer, OpenAI saves money. We are seeing a "regression to the mean," where the tool is throttled to provide just enough value to keep you subscribed, but not enough to cost the provider too much compute power.
The Privacy Vampire: You Are the Training Data
The most critical issue—one that affects every business owner and individual—is privacy.
When you type into ChatGPT, you are not whispering into a vault; you are broadcasting into a dataset. Despite the "opt-out" buttons and "privacy controls," the fundamental business model of these companies relies on consuming user data to train future iterations.
- The "Black Box" Problem: We have no way of verifying what happens to the data we input. A conversation about sensitive business strategy or proprietary code could potentially be ingested and regurgitated to a competitor in a future model update.
The Verdict: A Useful Toy, Not a Business Partner
There is a place for AI. It works well as a "creative spar" or a summarizer of public information. But we must stop treating it as an oracle or a reliable employee.
It is a statistical guessing engine that frequently hallucinates facts, degrades in quality to save costs, and treats your private data as its own property. The valuation of these tools is based on the promise of a future they haven't delivered—a future where they are safe, private, and consistently brilliant.
Until that day comes, I recommend treating ChatGPT with the same skepticism you would a moody, gossiping intern: verify everything they say, and never tell them your secrets.
AI's Biggest Skeptic Sees a Bubble This video features a detailed discussion on why the current AI market is considered an economic bubble, reinforcing the "overinflated value" perspective discussed in your article.
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The Profit Paradox: Why Your Data Is The Only Real Asset
To understand why your privacy is being eroded, you simply have to follow the money—or rather, the lack of it.
Despite the astronomical valuations you see in the headlines, the reality of the AI business model is grim. Reports from late 2024 and 2025 indicate that while OpenAI generates billions in revenue, it burns through cash even faster—potentially losing up to $5 billion a year in operational costs. Keeping these massive "brains" running requires more electricity and computing power than some small nations consume.
This financial pressure creates a dangerous incentive. When a company is desperate to justify a trillion-dollar valuation while bleeding cash, they inevitably turn to the one asset they have in abundance: you.
The "Yelp" Effect: Silent Data Sharing
We are increasingly seeing this manifest through "partnerships" and "integrations" that act as data vacuums. A prime example is the integration with platforms like Yelp.
When you ask ChatGPT for a restaurant recommendation, it doesn't just "know" the answer. It often acts as a middleman, passing your specific query, your preferences, and frequently your IP-based location data directly to third-party partners like Yelp to retrieve the information.
- The Illusion of Privacy: You might think you are having a private conversation with an AI, but in reality, you are effectively browsing Yelp without visiting their website.
- The "Opt-In" Trap: These data exchanges often happen under the guise of "helpful plugins" or "browsing capabilities." While technically disclosed in terms of service that nobody reads, the practical reality is that your behavior, dining habits, and physical location are being shared with external marketing databases—often without a clear, "in-the-moment" warning to you.
As these models struggle to become profitable, expect these "silent" data-sharing agreements to become more aggressive. They aren't just answering your questions; they are building a profile of where you go and what you buy, to be monetized by the highest bidder.
Is ChatGPT Safe? Security & Privacy Guide This video is relevant as it explores the hidden risks of sharing sensitive information with AI systems and specifically discusses how your data can be exposed to third parties.
Published: 12/08/2025
