Setup
- Markets are only as honest as the signals they carry; unpriced harms create bad incentives.
- Externalities show up in surveillance, labor precarity, pollution, and resource drawdowns.
Systems view
- Hidden costs -> distorted prices -> overproduction of harm; feedback is muted until crises hit.
- Measurement and liability can reintroduce signals without centralizing all choices.
Social and political stakes
- Who bears the water and energy bill for AI; whose privacy funds ad tech; whose neighborhoods absorb pollution.
- Policy choices decide whether harms stay invisible or get surfaced into prices.
Tools to consider
- Taxes, fees, and liability targeted at harm sources; disclosure and open measurement to keep data honest.
- Guardrails to avoid swinging into command-and-control that flattens diverse needs.
Expansion notes
- Include a brief case (data centers and water tables, or data brokerage and surveillance rents) to ground the argument.