‘Anything that can’t go on forever eventually stops’: ‘Enshittification’ author issues stark warning to Ottawa over AI policy

Cory Doctorow says he believes AI firms will intentionally degrade their products to recoup large infrastructure expenditures — and it’s up to policymakers to protect Canadians from this. The originator of “enshittification,” an increasingly popular term used to describe decaying digital products and services, is cautioning against the Liberal government’s support for artificial intelligence, which he calls the “money-losingest technology ever seen.” “ should be serious about the future of AI, instead of trying to be buzzword-compliant or following the herd,” said Canadian writer Cory Doctorow, author of the 2025 bestselling book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, in an interview with The Hill Times. “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM and, in 2026, nobody ever got fired for betting their national future on AI,” Doctorow said. Doctorow, a writer and activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, coined the term “enshittification” to describe what he believes is a trend of social media and other tech firms disrupting an industry with a new product, grabbing an overwhelming portion of the market share, and then slowly—and intentionally—deteriorating the product to the detriment of individual users and, more generally, society. He points to platforms like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), both of which introduced paid posts, large-scale algorithmic changes, and data surveillance mechanisms largely after a “critical mass” of people started using the platform, making it exceedingly difficult to leave. “Enshittification” has since been included in the Cambridge and Merriam-Webster dictionaries, and is defined on Wikipedia as “crapification and platform decay,” and “a process in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time.” In his writing, Doctorow has also taken aim at companies like Uber, which implemented surge pricing after upending the transportation market, but, in recent years, he has increasingly turned his attention to AI and the industry’s seemingly unabashed support from governments around the world, including Canada. “I’ve watched Canada wade into this technological moment with Trump’s tariffs and say, ‘The answer to all of our problems is we’re going to fire 10,000 civil servants,’” said Doctorow, who was born in Toronto but now lives in Los Angeles. “And using this technology that can only make money if we can figure out how to make millions of people unemployed, so it will probably never make money because we can’t figure out how to do that,” he said. “And this is somehow going to set Canada free? Even though all the chips and technology come from America?” Doctorow shares the belief that widespread private and public-sector investment in AI is contributing to a bubble that will soon burst, causing devastation across the global economy. In 2024, corporate investment in the AI industry totalled $252.3-billion, according to research from Stanford University, nearly half of which came from the U.S. However, investors have also supported AI initiatives north of the border, such as Microsoft’s commitment of $19-billion over five years to support AI infrastructure projects in Canada. Meanwhile, the federal government’s 2025 budget included $925.6-million for “large-scale sovereign public AI infrastructure.” The budget also included a promise to enable the Canada Infrastructure Bank to finance the construction of AI data centres and other similar projects. However, the profitability of many AI startups is still relatively unproven. While usage of the technology has skyrocketed in recent years, many companies leading the AI revolution have not been able to use the surge in private investment to cover massive debts associated with the construction and rental of data centres, in addition to other costs. A 2025 study from HSBC found OpenAI, the developer behind ChatGPT, will need to raise $207-billion by the end of the decade—and it might still lose money. “If you want to skate to where the puck is going to be, you would look at this AI phenomenon and think that anything that can’t go on forever eventually stops,” said Doctorow. “Eventually, they’re going to run out of fuckers to give them hundreds of millions…, and then the bottle is going to pop.” “If Canada was trying to chart across the future, we could go with the stuff that makes money, instead of losing money, stuff that makes us more independent, instead of dependent, stuff that would create jobs, instead of destroying millions of jobs.” Upcoming AI ‘enshittification’? But, until that happens, Doctorow said, the continued investment in AI startups has significantly increased the likelihood that OpenAI and other companies will follow the trend of “enshittification.” In fact, the political risk consultancy firm Eurasia Group listed AI “enshittification” as one of the top risks for 2026 in its recent report. “Under pressure to generate revenue and unconstrained by guardrails, a number of leading AI companies will adopt business models in 2026 that threaten social and political stability—following social media’s destructive playbook, only faster and at greater scale,” reads the company’s analysis. “We’ve seen this movie before. Cory Doctorow calls it ‘enshittification’: platforms attract users with attractive ‘free’ products, lock them in, then systematically degrade the experience to extract maximum value,” the report reads. “AI is following the same trajectory—only faster, and with a technology far more strategically important to the global economy than social media ever was. And AI isn’t just another platform. Social media captures your attention. AI programs your behaviour, shapes your thoughts, and mediates your reality.” So, what could AI “enshittification” look like? According to Nick Reiners, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group, maybe ChatGPT will start running advertisements (as it has already been reportedly testing), or maybe certain chatbots will require paid subscriptions. Or, perhaps, the way in which these firms use people’s data could become much more exploitative, continued Reiners. “The worry is particularly the use of personal data to create psychological profiles and use that to sell things to you,” Reiners said in an interview. “Because some of these systems are going to know you better than your own family. So, especially with kids confiding their whole personal lives into these systems, they can be turned right back at them.” “Because the data is gold and the potential here is obvious.” In recent weeks, children have been among those victimized by a proliferation of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes generated by Grok, the AI software embedded into X’s user interface. Studies suggest Grok has posted thousands of AI ‘nudifying’ images, prompting some parliamentarians to call on the federal Liberal government to abandon the platform. On Jan. 14, Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne announced his office had launched an investigation into Grok’s generation of explicit images. The Eurasia Group report cites a 2025 study from the Centre for Democracy and Technology, which suggests nearly half of U.S. high school students use AI for mental-health support, while nearly one-fifth of teens claims to have a romantic relationship with an AI software. “It contributes to this sense of the breakdown of the shared reality in society and, particularly, democracy,” added Reiners. “We need to all agree on what the basic reality of the world is, and AI can undermine that.” ‘Blame the policymakers,’ says Doctorow Reiners also emphasized that it’s not too late to stop AI “enshittification,” but governments across the globe need to learn that regulation is “actually a good thing.” “Technology needs to work for people,” he said. “But there’s this idea that companies should be free to innovate in whatever way they like, even if it doesn’t lead to societally beneficial outcomes.” “So, governments need to rediscover regulation and find some backbone when it comes to standing up to these companies,” he said. For Doctorow, the burden of resolving “enshittification” lies entirely with governments because, unlike big tech CEOs, elected officials work for the people. “The people who we have to blame are policymakers because they work for us,” said Doctorow. “Yet, they have still promulgated policies that had the foreseeable effect of creating this ‘enshittogenic’ policy environment where companies become too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care.” In particular, Doctorow takes issue with Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon (Toronto Centre, Ont.). Solomon is expected to unveil Canada’s AI strategy later this year, which he said will be accompanied by legislation directed at privacy and data concerns associated with the technology. During an appearance at the House Science and Research Committee on Dec. 3, Solomon said the government’s “guiding principle is AI for all.” For his part, Doctorow said he feels his job had become to “figure out how to get people to abandon strategy.” “I don’t think I’m going to convince the AI minister not to do AI,” he said. “I’m more interested in whether other people in cabinet or people standing for the leadership of other parties … can be convinced this is a winning strategy.” “Because I don’t think Canada has done anything meaningful to create liability for AI companies or to impose limits on their conduct.” Doctorow cited a U.S. court’s decision that found AI-generated work is not subject to copyright law, which he said helps protect artists and cultural producers. Elsewhere, the European Union passed a regulatory framework for AI in 2024, which outlawed the technology’s use for certain functions. In Canada, Bill C-27, the Liberal government’s proposed AI legislation, died on the Order Paper when then-prime minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament last year, and there has been no indication of what any follow-up legislation might look like. Earlier this week, the federal government announced plans to hold a national summit on AI and culture, set to be hosted in Banff, Alta., on March 16 and 17, which will bring together policymakers, academics and civil society leaders. Solomon’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment during the development of this story. Doctorow is expected to publish a book later this year on AI, while he’s also set to appear in Ottawa on Jan. 28, when he will participate in a lecture series at the allsaints event space organized by independent bookstore Perfect Books. dlegree@hilltimes.com This story has been cross-published with The Hill Times.

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‘Anything that can’t go on forever eventually stops’: ‘Enshittification’ author issues stark warning to Ottawa over AI policy

Regulatory | By Davis Legree |January 15, 2026

Cory Doctorow says he believes AI firms will intentionally degrade their products to recoup large infrastructure expenditures — and it’s up to policymakers to protect Canadians from this.

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Regulatory |
By Davis Legree
|January 15, 2026