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What is the actual rationale behind some companies literally shoving AI down people’s throats? It’s fascinating stuff and can be very useful. Why does it have

by api 1y ago

What is the actual rationale behind some companies literally shoving AI down people’s throats? It’s fascinating stuff and can be very useful. Why does it have to be rammed so hard? I’ve never quite seen anything like this. Or maybe I have. It reminds me a little of the obviously astroturfed effort to ram crypto down people’s throats. But crypto was something most people didn’t have any actual utility for. A magic tireless junior intern who had memorized the entire Internet is actually useful.

Traubenfuchs 1y ago
Not old enough for MongoDB? Big Data?
- api 1y ago
  I lived through that but it wasn’t like this. Hype isn’t the same thing as having something rammed down your throat with constant nag pop ups and dark patterns.
  - dboreham 1y ago
    It's more like the pop-under era.
marginalia_nu 1y ago
KPIs are likely the missing part of the puzzle. CEO wants AI engagement to go up, organization makes AI engagement go up. If users don't want to engage with new AI features, the new AI features become unavoidable so that engagement goes up despite user preferences. KPIs are a fantastic way for an organization to lose any touch with reality and can drive some truly bizarre decision-making.
- api 1y ago
  Ahh, the reason we lost the Vietnam war. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
  - marginalia_nu 1y ago
    "AI is the Vietnam of product management" is a blog post that almost writes itself. Not really my field so if anyone wants to take it for a spin, go ham.
    - api 1y ago
      Have ChatGPT write it This isn’t AI specific though. The whole industry runs this way because thoughtful decision making doesn’t scale easily. KPIs are easier.
      - marginalia_nu 1y ago
        Kinda weird though, like with many things in the industry we seem to be doing things that are far from optimal, but for some reasons organizations that do things differently aren't winning the competition. Ostensibly most successful software is written in languages that aren't very good, with development methodologies that aren't very good, in organizational structures that aren't very good. Where is the existence proof? Why isn't software written in a good language, using a good methodology with sane management winning the race?
        grayhatter 1y ago
        because quality has never been the driver of survival. It has always survival. The race is a race of endurance, it's not a competition on merits. Humans would undoubtedly be better without scars, but the same anomaly that gave us scar tissue, gave us faster wound healing. Increasing survival. But scars don't go away, when it'd be better if they did. There's no selection pressure there because it's good enough. IBM still exists despite it's inability to make good decisions, it makes decisions that allow it to survive. It could just as easily make different decisions, and I would have named a different company. Not because it made different decisions, but because it survived. Why do companies that survive make these weird decisions? They don't, there is no back pressure. Decisions don't matter, survival does. The race isn't a competition, it's a death march. If you want to 'win' the death march, prioritize survival above everything else, especially quality and correctness. (I don't strictly follow this philosophy myself, a good engineer will always ask, why not both. Just make sure you identify endurance as the most important strategy)
acuozzo 1y ago
> What is the actual rationale behind some companies literally shoving AI down people’s throats? It's propping up the US economy and businesses mostly look at B2B signals. Keeping "demand" for AI high at e.g., Microsoft, keeps "demand" high on NVIDIA, CoreWeave, et al. All of the boats are floating in the bathtub and nobody wants to be the one to pull the drain plug.

by api 1y ago

Traubenfuchs 1y ago

Not old enough for MongoDB? Big Data?

api 1y ago
I lived through that but it wasn’t like this. Hype isn’t the same thing as having something rammed down your throat with constant nag pop ups and dark patterns.
- dboreham 1y ago
  It's more like the pop-under era.

marginalia_nu 1y ago

KPIs are likely the missing part of the puzzle. CEO wants AI engagement to go up, organization makes AI engagement go up. If users don't want to engage with new AI features, the new AI features become unavoidable so that engagement goes up despite user preferences. KPIs are a fantastic way for an organization to lose any touch with reality and can drive some truly bizarre decision-making.

api 1y ago
Ahh, the reason we lost the Vietnam war. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
- marginalia_nu 1y ago
  "AI is the Vietnam of product management" is a blog post that almost writes itself. Not really my field so if anyone wants to take it for a spin, go ham.
  - api 1y ago
    Have ChatGPT write it This isn’t AI specific though. The whole industry runs this way because thoughtful decision making doesn’t scale easily. KPIs are easier.
    - marginalia_nu 1y ago
      Kinda weird though, like with many things in the industry we seem to be doing things that are far from optimal, but for some reasons organizations that do things differently aren't winning the competition. Ostensibly most successful software is written in languages that aren't very good, with development methodologies that aren't very good, in organizational structures that aren't very good. Where is the existence proof? Why isn't software written in a good language, using a good methodology with sane management winning the race?
      - grayhatter 1y ago
        because quality has never been the driver of survival. It has always survival. The race is a race of endurance, it's not a competition on merits. Humans would undoubtedly be better without scars, but the same anomaly that gave us scar tissue, gave us faster wound healing. Increasing survival. But scars don't go away, when it'd be better if they did. There's no selection pressure there because it's good enough. IBM still exists despite it's inability to make good decisions, it makes decisions that allow it to survive. It could just as easily make different decisions, and I would have named a different company. Not because it made different decisions, but because it survived. Why do companies that survive make these weird decisions? They don't, there is no back pressure. Decisions don't matter, survival does. The race isn't a competition, it's a death march. If you want to 'win' the death march, prioritize survival above everything else, especially quality and correctness. (I don't strictly follow this philosophy myself, a good engineer will always ask, why not both. Just make sure you identify endurance as the most important strategy)

acuozzo 1y ago

> What is the actual rationale behind some companies literally shoving AI down people’s throats? It's propping up the US economy and businesses mostly look at B2B signals. Keeping "demand" for AI high at e.g., Microsoft, keeps "demand" high on NVIDIA, CoreWeave, et al. All of the boats are floating in the bathtub and nobody wants to be the one to pull the drain plug.