We still don’t know how people are really using AI
Nobody is talking about what we actually don't know: AI companies control the narrative on how their products are really used.
Why it matters
AI companies selectively release usage data with no independent verification, creating a transparency gap that affects how policymakers, researchers, and practitioners understand AI's real-world impact. This methodological blind spot matters for regulation, safety research, and industry accountability.
The key facts
9 to knowAI companies (Anthropic, OpenAI) publish usage reports unilaterally without independent corroboration
Stanford Computer Science PhD researcher Anka Reuel quotes lack of independent verification source
Raises questions about transparency in how AI adoption is measured and reported
Affects policy, safety research, and public understanding of AI deployment scale
OpenAI and Anthropic publish usage data unilaterally
No independent verification or corroboration available
Anka Reuel (Stanford Trustworthy AI) raises transparency concern
Companies control what metrics are released to public
Gap between published adoption claims and actual deployment patterns unknown
Go to the source
MIT Technology Reviewtechnologyreview.com
Publisher excerpt: AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using products like Claude and ChatGPT, but they only release the data they want us to see, AI researchers say. “There is no independent source to corroborate it,” says Anka Reuel, a Computer Science PhD candidate at…