https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-5dfa1da145689e7951a181e2253ab349
“Visa wants to give artificial intelligence ‘agents’ your credit card”
” Visa announced Wednesday it is partnering with a group of leading AI chatbot developers — among them U.S. companies Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI and Perplexity, and France’s Mistral — to connect their AI systems to Visa’s payments network. Visa is also working with IBM, online payment company Stripe and phone-maker Samsung on the initiative. Pilot projects begin Wednesday, ahead of more widespread usage expected next year.”
Now, if you think that you have the discipline to visit Costco (or any other retailer) with a list of things you need to buy, and you will NEVER end up buying other stuff you just can’t resist (“It was on sale, this is a real bargain, etc.”), then you will be sure to expect that this scheme will save you money. Could spending more now, really ever save you money?
And if you do believe that, then there’s a primo lot in the swamp with your initials already on the purchase agreement. Or if you need ocean front property in Arizona, that can be arranged as well.
How does Visa make its money? The more cardholders buy, the more Visa makes. Visa, like other public companies, operates on its guiding star of maximizing profits. The interest rate will always benefit the business, not the card holder!
Yes, you’re getting the drift (or “grift”) when you realize that the object of this slick program is to remove as much friction as possible between the availability of “too good to be true” deals and the buying decision. The points system added by many credit card companies has helped to solicit buyers into spending more for a purpose. Yet, whether you are collecting airline miles or hotel points, you still need to activate those features and agree to additional terms.
C’mon, man! Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
This is just a thinly veiled scheme to shorten the mean time from the transmission of the cardholder’s credit card line to the account of the retailer – with a hefty fee landing in Visa’s pocket.
If you think that the current aggregate outstanding balances on the nation’s consumer credit accounts (now over $1.2 Trillion) won’t increase as a result of this nonsense, then you probably also believe that the national debt will be less than $36 Trillion this time next year.
OK, that’s the foundation the Molière team has put in place on which to base the award of the Molière Citation to Visa, and its co-conspirators (some, but not all, of which were named in this article).
Here’s our plan: when this great new whiz-bang “service” is offered, we’re going to opt out, regardless of the claimed benefits.
PS — Remember that every credit card charge you make is inextricably intertwined with a record of what you purchased; this information is then collected, analyzed, and utilized for marketing programs to sell you more of what you’ve demonstrated is the stuff you like. You will, no doubt, find that the small print in the program you agree to participate in will give Visa the right to use this information to manipulate your limbic system (look it up, it’s the part of your brain where you make buying decisions) into buying more stuff. Or go check out the educational and science that Harvard is studying on your buying manipulation:
bit.ly/44QxAAt
It’s classic: the desired result is to get cardholders to buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t like. It’s your choice today, to determine your future tomorrow. What will you decide today?
Photo: created using ChatGPT