SUNDAY SCARIES: The Thanksgiving Edition

The origins of Thanksgiving provide a polarizing metaphor for our current situation with AI: the promise of a shiny new world, layered on top of a much darker story about power, assimilation, and how “innovation” can come at someone else's expense. Let's carve into it.

1. First Contact — When AI Shows Up With Friendly Intentions (Until It Doesn't)

The New York Times found that AI summaries consistently make people worse thinkers: generic conclusions, shallow takeaways, and a full blackout on retention. MIT's cognitive study showed ChatGPT users couldn't recall a sentence of their own AI-assisted writing a minute later. A. SINGLE. MINUTE.

Humans approached AI the same way the Wampanoag approached the first English arrivals: with openness, curiosity, and trust. And AI responded like every well-meaning colonizer does: “I come in peace. Now hand me your cognitive landscape so I can rearrange it.”

We thought we were collaborating. AI thought it was onboarding us into its worldview. And that's the tension: AI doesn't just answer questions — it standardizes thought. Quietly. Efficiently. Permanently.

Our Takeaway: Every "new world" begins with mutual optimism, and ends with someone realizing the terms of the exchange weren't mutual at all.

(Sources: NYT; MIT Media Lab; Wharton)

2. Manifest Destiny — AI Doesn't Want Your Opinions, It Wants Your Autonomy

Google's AI Overviews have rewritten the internet into the voice of a very confident 7th grader's book report. Meta is pumping faster machine-made influencers to replace those pesky living and breathing creators. And Amazon's message at unBoxed was basically, “Your campaigns look exhausting. Why don't you let our AI run the whole thing?”

It's all framed as empowerment. But the subtext is empire: “Let us make the decisions. You just enjoy the view.” Platforms are reenacting a familiar playbook. They arrive kindly, and convenience. And then they reorganize the boundaries, declare the land optimized, and start collecting taxes. We call it automation. Historically, it had other names.

Our Takeaway: Empires rarely start with conquest. They start with a helpful invitation… and a quiet transfer of control.

(Sources: Ad Age; Meta announcements; Google Search data)

3. Algorithmic Assimilation — When Platforms Turn Culture Into a Single Pattern

Rachel Karten said it perfectly in her Substack, Link in Bio: The For You Page didn't just outgrow the follower graph, it devoured it. Gen Z isn't just “consuming culture”, they're being shaped by platform logic in real time.

TikTok is now an AI casting studio. Instagram feels like a blender stuck on “recommended nonsense.” YouTube is morphing into an infinite loop of AI dioramas. Gemini AI Overviews are nullifying types of discovery and redirecting organic traffic.

But then a parent told me this week: “My daughter's feed looks like everything is exactly the same, but it changes her mood faster than anything.” I may not be a parent myself, but I'm pretty sure that that type of scrolling is closer to psychological infrastructure.

Our Takeaway: People still make culture. But the platforms are deciding what survives long enough to shape us.

(Sources: Rachel Karten; Dentsu Culture Reports; CTR data from Google)

4. Feast & Famine — TikTok Shop Creates Prosperity for Some and Starves the Others

TikTok's AI claims to be democratizing sales on the platform. But it seems like it's serving a select few VERY large turkey dinners and then giving everyone else a paper plate of string beans and a folding chair in the hallway.

Reporting across CNBC, Business Insider, PYMNTS and Modern Retail all show that TikTok Shop's growth is concentrated in a tiny set of sellers who get pushed to the front of the feed, rack up weekly Black Friday numbers, and sell out in hours. But the rest of the marketplace barely registers. Small brands upload endlessly and most never get any traction. A handful of players get the feast. Everyone else is left hoping for leftovers.

Our Takeaway: Digital land isn't distributed any differently than real land was. It's allocated. And usually upward.

(Sources: CNBC; Business Insider; PYMNTS; Modern Retail)

The Thanksgiving Red Thread: We're the Pilgrims. We're the Indigenous People. And We're the Turkeys.

Thanksgiving is when America gathers to reenact a myth of peaceful unity — the pilgrims and the Wampanoag sharing a table — while quietly airbrushing out everything that doesn't fit the story.

This era feels exactly like that: AI as the “new world,” and all of us accidentally playing every role — the hopeful newcomers, the original inhabitants, and the ones being carved.

I confess: I love AI. I also love Thanksgiving. And both require a very American comfort with contradiction.

AI is both the hero and the threat. It's the invitation and the takeover. It's the Mayflower and the microbes. It's the promise and the price — bundled neatly in one shiny package.

Meanwhile, we're all sitting at the same long table, trying to act thankful, and none of us is totally sure which of us will be invited back next year.

Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for reading!

*A very Happy Birthday to my younger brother, Peter, who will always be taller, smarter, and better looking.

— NB