[Note: Armon Dadgar, a UW computer science alum, was co-founder and CTO of HashiCorp, a cloud infrastructure automation company that was founded in 2013, went public on the NASDAQ in 2021, and sold to IBM in 2025. In his role, he spoke with thousands of companies adopting cloud across a wide range of industries, giving him a unique perspective on technology adoption.]

Pixar released WALL-E in June 2008, almost two weeks before Apple launched the App Store. The film follows WALL-E, a robot left behind to clean up Earth after it becomes an ecological wasteland no longer suitable for life, stranding humanity out in space. The remaining human population is entirely moribund in hoverchairs and completely immersed in a digital reality.

For many years, I’ve jokingly called it a historical documentary from the future and with each passing year we seem to get closer to its dark prophecy. Today, we live in a “WALL-E economy” with apps and services that cater to convenience and human vice, but with an increasing toll to our mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing, as well as our environment. The growing capabilities and prevalence of AI risks accelerating those trends, and moving us further towards the WALL-E dystopia.

The faustian bargain of WALL-E is that we willingly trade comfort for everything, including our free will. We live a bovine existence, where we are endlessly fed content, told what to wear, what to buy, what to think, and how to vote, and in exchange we are kept safe and warm in the proverbial womb. We get our dopamine, but we never ask at what cost.

Far from being hypothetical, we can see many of these same tradeoffs in the most popular services today. The average American spends around 2.5 hours per day on social media, and for Gen Z it’s even worse, at a stunning 5 hours daily. It feels costless to scroll through memes and share posts with friends, but these services have stolen time from physical activity, connecting with friends, engaging in hobbies, and other activities that foster connection and meaning. We have a crisis of teenage mental health, a loneliness epidemic, rising political extremism, and a “friendship recession.” While correlation is not causation, it’s reasonably safe to admit it’s the phones.

Outside of social media, we have many services of convenience, such as DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Instacart, which are primarily used for food delivery. While you might think they are “luxury services,” data shows that usage is broad across income levels, and in fact disproportionately used by those who can least afford it, even trapping users with “Buy Now, Pay Later” services. The immediate convenience is undeniable, but so is the financial burden to users, damage to restaurant culture as they are forced to adapt to delivery services, and the growing unhappiness that comes with solo dining.

The WALL-E economy often pairs delivering convenience with packaging vice under a shiny application layer. Sports betting services like DraftKings, prediction markets like Kalshi, and retail options trading on Robinhood are prime examples. They are all gambling packaged up and made presentable. Chesterton’s fence reminds us that if we’ve discouraged gambling for millennia, there might be a good reason for it. Unsurprisingly, making these services available 24/7 and putting them in our pockets has led to a rise in addiction, bankruptcy, and suicide.

If the smartphone enabled the WALL-E economy, AI is going to supercharge it. AI is accelerating the ability to collect and analyze data, to highly personalize, and to target algorithmically with precision, with the intent to influence user behavior. This threatens to make the WALL-E economy both smarter and more harmful.

Targeting people who are already lonely and alienated, virtual dating services are one of the most pernicious use cases for AI. Users are willing to believe they’ve found meaningful connection with an AI while getting used to the “frictionless” interaction of chatbots makes the nuanced and ambiguous world of real people that much harder to navigate. It’s clear the cure is worse than the disease, as this only increases social isolation, leading to depression and suicide.

AI will also enable more sophisticated applications of surveillance capitalism and dark patterns that aim to manipulate user behavior. AI-driven customer profiles will determine if you are a price sensitive shopper and use that to inflate prices or apply surge pricing. Betting apps can detect when a frequent gambler hasn’t placed bets recently and give them free credits to lure them back along with a 24/7 AI-bookie that can discuss and encourage bets.

The AI-slop future of social media is clear as Zuckerberg is walking back from the metaverse and pivoting to AI. Social media platforms historically needed users to actually create content, which they could promote based on user interests. The need for content producers vanishes if content can be AI generated, perfectly tailored and personalized, endlessly. This future might increase user engagement, but would likely exacerbate the problems of isolation and alienation that we already face.

We can wax nostalgic for a simpler time, but there is no path back to before smartphones, social media, or AI. We can’t wish it away, and there are staggering amounts of capital being deployed to extend AI to every corner of the economy. While Silicon Valley might argue for “technology inevitability” and the notion that technological progress is inevitable and good, this ignores the fact that people still have agency. Most technology is inseparable from a set of social and political questions, and unfettered use is not inevitable. The recent order banning Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos model is a prime example.

In the movie, WALL-E is given the sisyphean task of cleaning up a ruined Earth. Despite his programming, he imagines a better world and rejects the inevitability of his destiny to fight for something better. Today as we consider the AI-supercharged version of the WALL-E economy, it’s not surprising that most people aren’t enthused. We are suffering from a failure of imagination for what a better future could look like instead.

The rise of “friction-maxxing” as a new trend that rejects convenience as an end to itself is a start. It’s part of the growing recognition that humans need to derive meaning from our lives and work. The growing discourse around the perils of convenience, along with individual behavior changes, help to shift the Overton window. Changing hearts and minds is a crucial step towards new regulations, which are needed to solve the social challenges more broadly. This is a slow process, but we can look to cigarettes as a good historical analogy.

Cigarette companies had a clear incentive to market and sell aggressively, and made a best effort to hide the health impacts of their products, similar to the companies powering the WALL-E economy. Eventually, it became clear that cigarettes pose a major health risk, both to the direct users and the second-hand bystanders, which prompted social changes in how they were viewed and ultimately political changes in how they are regulated. As a result, there has been a dramatic reduction in their usage today.

For the modern WALL-E economy there is no perfect, singular regulation. It requires a democratic process to balance mitigating the harms as we better understand them, with individual rights and autonomy. For digital platforms, countries like Australia and the UK are leading the way in banning the use of social media for children and teenagers, in recognition of the harm they cause. Utah is taking action against “prediction marketplaces” in recognition of them being effectively online gambling. This type of regulatory change is important to solve societal problems but takes time, especially with highly concentrated interests lobbying against a disorganized public.

Beyond just waiting for improved regulation, we can reclaim our individual agency by living with more intentionality. In my personal life, I’ve looked for opportunities to host more regularly, whether a small dinner or a large party to create and foster connections. I’ve worked to reduce the “information noise” by disabling most notifications, limiting time on social media, and spending more time reading on my Kindle distraction free. I consciously avoid eliminating all daily friction to provide a healthy level of resistance. None of these are huge changes, nor will they solve the broader problems, but they help to reshape our environment to avoid depending on willpower alone.

Changing our personal behaviors can help to insulate us from the WALL-E economy, but that isn’t enough. Taxing the profits of AI companies to provide UBI to fund “bread and circuses” couldn’t be more WALL-Esque. We should look to the techno-optimism of the Jetsons, where technology empowered humanity, and build towards a future we are excited about, rather than one we merely accept as inevitable. WALL-E is incredibly dark for a children’s movie, but the struggle of the character ultimately gives hope to a more optimistic future, and brings to mind the old boy scout motto: try to leave this world a little better than you found it.

Special thanks to Josh Kalla, Behzod Sirjani, and Kevin Fishner for their feedback on this post.

Gov. Bob Ferguson last week recruited top executives from Microsoft, Amazon, T-Mobile, Boeing and other major employers to help shape Washington state’s economic strategy, launching a new advisory council as concerns mount that the state is becoming less competitive for business.

The 26-member Governor’s Economic Development Council is the first such governor-led economic advisory body in roughly two decades, reviving an approach last used under former Gov. Christine Gregoire in 2006. The group includes leaders from technology, aerospace, organized labor, higher education, tribal governments, ports and economic development organizations who will advise the governor on policies aimed at strengthening Washington’s economy. (See full list below).

One missing ingredient: No members from Washington’s venture capital or startup ecosystem are on the council, even though they are often considered the bench strength of a growing economy.

The announcement comes as executives, startup founders and business organizations have increasingly warned that higher taxes, rising costs, permitting delays and an uncertain regulatory environment are making Washington a more difficult place to build and grow companies. Ferguson recently signed the so-called “millionaires tax” — a proposed 9.9% tax applied to taxable, personal annual income that exceeds $1 million.

Some of the region’s wealthiest and most prominent entrepreneurs — including Zillow and Expedia co-founder Rich Barton; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz — have publicly announced moves out of Washington state in recent years.

Starbucks also recently announced a major expansion in Nashville, and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte of earlier this month announced that Sedro Wooley, Wash.-based Janicki Industries chose Great Falls for the site of an $800 million manufacturing center expected to create 1,000 jobs.

“Washington is our home, and that is not changing,” said John Janicki, president of Janicki Industries, in a press release. “Our footprint in Washington has continued to grow but is slowing due to ever-increasing regulations and lack of business understanding at an executive and legislative level.” 

Meanwhile, a recent survey from the Association of Washington Business found that 24% of businesses are considering a relocation out of the state, up from 17 percent in the prior quarter.

Washington’s economic climate was also one of the reasons why GeekWire recently traveled to Cleveland, where we explored how the Midwestern city was positioning itself for a changing economy, and the lessons that Washington could learn from it.

“We cannot take our strength for granted,” Ferguson said in announcing the council. “I’m launching a historic convening of top leaders from around Washington state to help guide the next chapter of economic prosperity for our state.”

The council will help develop Washington’s long-term economic strategy, identify opportunities to create family-wage jobs, evaluate the state’s competitiveness against other states and global markets, recommend ways to attract new employers and review regulatory barriers that may be slowing economic growth. The group will meet quarterly and submit recommendations to the governor.

The council’s creation comes after months of growing unease within Washington’s technology and business community.

GeekWire has reported extensively on criticism surrounding this year’s tax package, which raised business taxes on many employers and expanded the sales tax to additional services, including advertising. Business groups warned the measures could discourage investment and expansion in Washington, while lawmakers argued the revenue was necessary to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap and preserve essential public services.

The broader economic backdrop remains mixed. Washington continues to rank among the nation’s strongest state economies and remains home to global leaders in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, aerospace and life sciences. At the same time, employers are navigating higher borrowing costs, federal policy uncertainty, trade tensions and intensifying competition from states aggressively courting new investment.

As one example, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently encouraged people and businesses from places like Washington to consider Ohio.

“Come work in Ohio,” DeWine noted after a question from GeekWire about advice he’d provide to Washington. “You will not find a better place, better people, quality of life. Cost of living is low compared to the two coasts.”

In the press release announcing Janicki Industries’ Montana expansion, Gianforte was a bit more blunt.

“The Treasure State is proud to attract job creators like Janicki that choose to expand from high-tax, high-regulation blue states to take advantage of our unmatched quality of life, lower taxes, and strong workforce,” he said. “I look forward to seeing the impact of this significant investment.”

Ferguson has sought to make economic development a central priority during his first year in office. His administration has highlighted efforts to speed permitting across state agencies, increase housing production and invest in sectors including quantum computing, advanced manufacturing and clean energy.

However, some have argued that the governor’s efforts come a bit too late, and are only be instituted in response to criticism. Gov. Ferguson shot back at that contention in the press conference last week, saying he doesn’t worry about critics and he’s interested in “solving problems.”

“I didn’t wake up last week and think about forming this council,” he said. “To be clear, as I mentioned in my talking points, this was an effort we really started last year and was an outgrowth of having conversations with many of the folks behind me and many other people across the state.”

Whether the new council ultimately leads to meaningful policy changes remains to be seen. But its creation sends a signal that Ferguson intends to place economic competitiveness — and closer engagement with Washington’s business community — near the center of his administration.

Amazon Chief Global Affairs and Legal Officer David Zapolsky, a member of the newly created council, called the formation of the group an “important step.”

“When the public and private sectors align around shared goals, communities benefit,” he said.

Governor’s Economic Development Council members:

• Michael Cade — Incoming Board Chair, Washington Economic Development Association; Executive Director, Thurston County Economic Development Council
• Dr. Betsy Cantwell — President, Washington State University
• Leonard Forsman — Chairman, Suquamish Tribe
• Denny Heck — Washington State Lieutenant Governor
• Kris Johnson — President, Association of Washington Business
• Trevor Johnson — CEO, Blackwood Homes
• Dr. Robert Jones — President, University of Washington
• Mike Katz — Chief Business & Product Officer, T-Mobile
• Mary Kipp — President & CEO, Puget Sound Energy
• Heather Kurtenbach — Executive Secretary, Washington State Building & Construction Trades Council
• Dr. Thomas J. Lynch Jr. — President & Director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
• Julianna Marler — CEO, Port of Vancouver
• West Mathison — President & CEO, Stemilt Growers
• Stephen Metruck — Executive Director, Port of Seattle
• Denise Moriguchi — President & CEO, Uwajimaya
• Stephanie Pope — President & CEO, Boeing Commercial Airplanes
• Heather Rosentrater — President & CEO, Avista
• Michael Senske — Chairman & CEO, Pearson Packaging Systems
• April Sims — President, Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO
• Brad Smith — Vice Chair and President, Microsoft
• Rachel Smith — President, Washington Roundtable
• Bill Sterud — Chairman, Puyallup Tribe
• Shane Tackett — President and Chief Financial Officer, Alaska Airlines
• Monique Valenzuela — Executive Director, Ventures
• Dr. Rebekah Woods — President, Columbia Basin College
• David Zapolsky — Chief Global Affairs & Legal Officer, Amazon