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Common AI for Common People: The 'Black Mirror' Reality of Tiered AI

  • Writer: S B
    S B
  • Jan 21
  • 5 min read
Four doors in a dark room: gold glowing, silver, white, and locked black with chains. Green field visible through the last door. Mysterious mood.
Different doors, different levels of access.

When ChatGPT launched it was free. Free. AI, the subject of science fiction, freely available to a global audience. It seemed almost too good to be true. We were so busy marveling at the freeness that we didn't ask how long it would last.

But this was short-lived.


Soon, the pricing models appeared. Free remained, but it was joined by Plus and Pro subscriptions. And with the subscriptions came the differentiation.


There aren't three categories, there are five. Add to the list of Free, Plus, and Pro users the non-users. Those who opt out and those who can't get in.


As AI makes its way into classrooms, business, entertainment, and day-to-day life, what exactly are we subscribing, or not subscribing, to?


And when we do subscribe, what's the price we pay?


Experts warn that AI users are offloading tasks, becoming dependent on the technology. Will people still be able to write emails manually? Or will we be cognitively lost like we are without the GPS?


What happens when you can't afford your subscription and the screen goes dark?



Those Who Don't Subscribe


How can a technology become a fabric of society when participation isn't universal? The AI refusers live outside the borders of the AI era. They don't chat with Gemini or Claude. They don't ask ChatGPT for recipes. They just don't engage.


And then there are the AI excluded. Those without access. No internet, no device, no subscription budget. They didn't choose to be outside. They just are.


Soon both will be like foreigners in their own land.


Are there pros to being on the fringes of AI adoption? To answer that, we can ask: are there advantages to not having a cell phone in today's society, or an email address? Maybe. But even those who live off the grid find themselves in need of reaching emergency services. Even when people try to grow their own food, pesticides reach organic farms.


You can't "opt-out" of the environment that AI is creating, just as an organic farmer can't opt-out of the air or water quality of the surrounding area. If we can't opt out of the environment AI creates, does society owe those "on the fringes" a different kind of protection?



The Subscribers


But some of us do subscribe. Each tier offers new features. Yet we have no real visibility into what each tier actually delivers. It's like buying internet service. If the company provided half the bandwidth we paid for at certain times, would we even know? If AI tools aren't really premium, would we know?


Do some of us subscribe out of fear of being left behind? Do some users pay for Pro not out of necessity but out of desperation?


Is the desperation grounded in career anxiety? Is it to maintain social status and, in some social circles, acceptance?


It's all of the above. The AI user is branded as savvy and progressive. AI literacy is becoming an expected competence among employers, and missing out can have both social and financial consequences. We've seen this before with social media.


Job applications ask for your LinkedIn profile link. That's a signal that you're supposed to have one.


Just as a recruiter looks for a LinkedIn link to verify you "exist" in the professional world, "AI literacy" on a resume is becoming a mandatory signal. You're not paying for the AI; you're paying for the right to be considered "competent."


The Pro users are similar to consumers who purchase organic produce. Ironically, they share the same sentiment as those who go off the grid to grow their own food. But they remain in the system, hoping to reap the benefits of both worlds. With food, it's longevity and better health; with AI, it's career insurance and staying ahead of the curve.



The Booster Economy


In the Black Mirror episode Common People, the lead male Mike found himself purchasing booster packs to keep his wife alive after she had been implanted with a neural interface. The interface streamed her consciousness from the cloud, but the basic subscription came with limitations: geographic restrictions, mandatory sleep cycles, and involuntary advertisements that hijacked her speech.


Purchasing boosters allowed Mike to give her set hours of "normalcy."


Last holiday season, Anthropic did just that, giving users doubled usage limits over Christmas, a temporary taste of enhanced capability that was then reverted, leaving users feeling like something had been taken away.


In both cases, the subscribers are limited to what they can afford. For Mike, he was paying for a normal life. Are AI customers paying for normalcy?


When a company 'gives' you more tokens or reasoning steps, they are reminding you that this capability is at their mercy.


In the episode, Mike isn't just buying data; he's buying his wife's presence. In our world, are we buying our professional presence and our creative voice?



The Ads Are Coming


Free doesn't last. Businesses need to generate revenue, and the AI usage is too widespread not to capitalize on it.


But when the ads arrive, will they be distributed equally? Today we can opt out of ads on streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu by paying for the premium packages. If you can't afford to pay, then you just endure the ads.


But there's another more interesting phenomenon. Free users on some AI platforms cannot opt out of having their data used to train the company's AI models. So, what they don't pay for with currency, they pay for with digital presence.



AI for Everyone, Not Quite.


AI is the most discussed topic of our time. The most funded industry in history, and the technology we understand least. It boasts promises of increased productivity and human flourishing. But it's not free.


We simply haven't written the social contract for how we will use it and pay for it. As the technology matures and becomes more widespread, the outcomes of being a free vs paid vs non-user will be revealed.


Black Mirror rose to popularity by giving us glimpses of our technological future. Maybe the show isn't predicting anything at all, but using our present reality to create its art.


Art imitates life and we've stepped into the Black Mirror.



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"AI is the tool, but the vision is human." — Sophia B.


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 About the Author


Sophia Banton is an AI leader working at the intersection of AI strategy, communication, and human impact. With a background in bioinformatics, public health, and data science, she brings a grounded, cross-disciplinary perspective to the adoption of emerging technologies.


Beyond technical applications, she explores GenAI’s creative potential through storytelling and short-form video, using experimentation to understand how generative models are reshaping narrative, communication, and visual expression.

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