Imposing AI: Deceptive design patterns against sustainability

TL;DR

This paper examines how tech companies use deceptive design patterns to impose AI usage, potentially leading to environmental harm, and discusses regulation opportunities to mitigate these effects.

Contribution

It identifies and categorizes design strategies used to impose AI, highlighting their implications for sustainability and regulation.

Findings

Tech companies embed AI features at the expense of non-AI options.

Narratives around AI make resistance difficult for users.

Imposed AI use may contribute to environmental harm.

Abstract

Generative AI is being massively deployed in digital services, at a scale that will result in significant environmental harm. We document how tech companies are transforming established user interfaces to impose AI use and show how and to what extent these strategies fit within established deceptive pattern categories. We identify two main design strategies that are implemented to impose AI use in both personal and professional contexts: imposing AI features in interfaces at the expense of existing non-AI features and promoting narratives about AI that make it harder to resist using it. We discuss opportunities for regulating the imposed adoption of AI features, which would inevitably lead to negative environmental effects.