Concern 596 · Working draft · editorial review in progress
Predatory AI-driven microtransactions
Predatory microtransaction design pressures users into repeated small purchases that are difficult to understand or meaningfully control.
Understanding the concern
A small payment may unlock an item, a feature or continued interaction. Many purchases can accumulate, especially when the service obscures the real cost or links spending to emotional rewards. AI could tailor that pressure, but deceptive purchase design predates conversational systems.
The FTC's action concerning unwanted game purchases illustrates the underlying issue without establishing AI involvement in that case. For children, clear costs and appropriate authorization are particularly important. A fair service makes declining easy and does not treat confusion, attachment or accidental clicks as a business opportunity.
An example
A user pays repeatedly to continue an interaction without seeing the total cost clearly.
Illustrative unless identified as a documented case.
Words in plain English
- AI
- Software that learns patterns from examples or uses rules to perform tasks such as recognizing images or generating text. It can make mistakes and does not understand every situation as a person would.
- Reward
- A signal used in some training methods to favor certain behavior. A high reward score does not necessarily mean a good result for people.
Evidence and its limits
The enforcement case concerns older digital design, while the preprint concerns emotional pressure. Their combination describes a possible AI risk, not a documented single product practice.
Federal Trade Commission · March 2023 · Enforcement announcement
FTC Finalizes Order Requiring Epic Games to Pay for Unwanted Charges ↗ (opens in a new tab)Settlement over deceptive purchase design; not evidence that the challenged design used generative AI.
De Freitas and colleagues · 2025 · Research preprint
Emotional Manipulation by AI Companions ↗ (opens in a new tab)Audits and experiments on emotional pressure at conversational exits; does not describe all companions or establish long-term harm.
Broader frameworks and background
These resources provide context. They do not establish every claim in this concern.
A question to discuss
What would make small in-app purchases understandable and genuinely optional?
Keep track of different views, what needs checking, and any next step in your own discussion notes.
Open discussion notes →Principles for the conversation
Before you finish · reflect together
Virtues and principles to consider
Virtues are qualities we practice in how we treat people and make choices. They are not scores for judging someone. Use these ideas to explore what a thoughtful response could look like.
Dignity
Dignity means recognizing each person's worth regardless of usefulness, status, or a system's score. People deserve respect and a voice in matters that affect them.
Explain important decisions, avoid humiliating treatment, and keep room for a person's story. Do not treat a prediction as a complete account of who someone is.
Ask together: Does this use treat each person as someone whose experience matters?
Listening
Listening means trying to understand someone's experience before preparing an answer. People who use a service, work with it, or are judged by it may notice problems its designers miss.
Invite people to describe what happened in their own words. Repeat back what you understood and let them correct it. A quiet person or a complaint that is hard to measure may still reveal something important.
Ask together: Whose experience have we not heard yet?
Seeing potential
Seeing potential means recognizing people's capacity to learn, contribute, and grow. It resists reducing someone to a score or to the tasks a machine can perform faster.
Use tools to support people's development. Give learners time, feedback, and real opportunities to practice. A prediction about someone's performance should not close off their future.
Ask together: How could this help people develop abilities they value?
Editorial ratings
These are editorial judgments from the register, not measured probabilities or predictions about your situation.
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