"Someone make a business using AI to analyze terms of service agreements we all skip reading."
That was the thought. Half-joking, half-serious—like most things worth listening to.
But what rose from it was something deeper:
What if the most skipped documents in modern life are the precise terrain where coercion hides?
We don't read Terms of Service because we can’t. Not because we're lazy—but because we’re not supposed to understand. They’re written to obscure—not to inform. Designed to induce passive consent through cognitive overload.
But what if we flipped the frame?
What if Terms of Service were treated as strategic field maps—not legal garbage?
What if we used AI not just to summarize—but to decode?
To surface where:
- Consent is assumed but not real
- Data extraction is embedded in innocuous phrases
- Power asymmetry is concealed in conditional language
- Behavioral manipulation is normalized in design
We don’t need another app. We need a systemic forensic tool—one that sees like we do.
🧬 Why This Matters to Fieldcraft
Fieldcraft isn't just about surviving hostile terrain.
It’s about recognizing terrain when it pretends not to be hostile.
Most of the institutions we move through—corporate, clinical, educational—operate under silent agreements. Rules that were never discussed. Boundaries that shift without notice. Systems that only show you the contract after the rupture.
Terms of Service are the perfect metaphor.
They are:
- Written without your input
- Changed without notice
- Enforced when convenient
- Weaponized when challenged
Just like the institution that retaliates when you ask too many questions.
Just like the HR department that claims “miscommunication” after refusing to communicate.
Just like the ethical code that only applies after you’ve been disciplined.
🔍 Fieldcraft Proposal: AI as Consent Infrastructure
Let’s make the tool.
Let’s treat every Terms of Service as a field document, and AI as the analyst.
But instead of just a summary, the output would include:
- Power Map: Who benefits most from this clause?
- Data Exposure Chart: What behaviors are tracked, and how is that data monetized?
- Asymmetry Index: How easy is it to opt out or seek redress?
- Dark Pattern Alerts: Where are you nudged, tricked, or trapped?
- Consent Coherence Score: Does this agreement align with any real-world ability to say no?
In other words: don’t just read the terms—see the system.
🧠 Cognitive Sovereignty Is Fieldcraft
We don’t need more tools that assume we’re too busy to care.
We need tools that believe our attention is sacred terrain.
A system that helps us see before harm happens.
Not just respond once it has.
If anyone out there wants to build this with me—reach out.
If you already are—I'm listening.
Until then, I’ll keep practicing Fieldcraft in every terrain I’m given.
Even the fine print.