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New public database documents how companies use AI to extract from customers and workers
The story
Grift, Inc. is a free, public, sourced database of how companies use artificial intelligence to take from their own customers and workers, paired with two books by Sotiris Spyrou: Grift, Inc., the record, and Aligned, the manual for building AI people can trust. Every case is tied to a court filing, a regulator action, or investigative journalism. The argument is plain: AI is a good tool, and the harm comes from the people who chose to point it at their own customers. Where Cory Doctorow named the pattern, this assembles the case files that ground it.
Quotable
“AI is the most useful tool business has had in a generation. Some companies chose to point it at their own customers, and most people feel it long before they can name it.”
“A medical claim denied in 1.2 seconds is not a glitch. It is a business decision someone signed off on. The database exists so those decisions stay on the record.”
“Every company named gets its strongest defence, and a right of reply. This is a record, not a rant.”
Cases on the record
Specific, sourced, and in active litigation (allegations unless resolved by a court):
Amazon
The FTC alleges Amazon used a secret pricing algorithm, internally codenamed Project Nessie, to raise prices where it predicted competitors would follow and to keep them high when they did, generating more than $1 billion in excess profit. Amazon disputes the FTC's account.
Cigna
A federal class action alleges Cigna used an algorithm called PXDX to deny claims in bulk, after ProPublica reported that its doctors denied around 300,000 claims in two months at an average of 1.2 seconds each, without reviewing the records. Cigna calls this a mischaracterisation of its process for speeding up payment of claims for routine, low-cost screenings.
UnitedHealthcare
A class action alleges UnitedHealthcare used an AI tool, nH Predict, as a hard cap on post-acute care for Medicare Advantage patients, and that roughly 90% of appealed denials were overturned. UnitedHealth says the tool is used as a guide and not to make coverage decisions.
About the author
Sotiris Spyrou is an AI governance consultant and the founder of Verity AI. He builds with AI every day and wrote Grift, Inc. because the technology deserves better than the companies that turned it on their own customers. He also wrote the AIGP Exam Guide, for the people who govern AI inside organisations. He lives in the United Kingdom.
Available for interview and commentary on:
- /How AI is used in pricing, hiring, and claims decisions
- /Antitrust and algorithmic price coordination
- /Consumer harm and dark patterns
- /AI in healthcare claim denials
- /Doctorow's "enshittification" and what comes after it
- /The business decisions behind the technology
Interviews & enquiries
Sotiris Spyrou is based in the United Kingdom and available for interview, podcasts, and written commentary. Email hello@griftinc.com.
Media kit
Title: Grift, Inc.: How AI Got Weaponised by the Worst People in Business
Edition: Volume 1: The Case Files
Author: Sotiris Spyrou (founder, Verity AI)
The book: Amazon
The database: griftinc.com/cases
The case database is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0: quote and build on it with attribution.