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You Can’t Trust the AI Hype

palladiummag.com · 3,930 words · saved by 4 readers

My friend had recently gained a renewed appreciation for managing people instead of software. “Why build tech when we have interns?” he asked as we caught up. He had recently made an exit from a successful startup and was now applying his AI skills in a large non-tech industry. “I had an intern manually watch a bunch of footage today and label stuff, and called it AI. If our stakeholders really like it, then we can build the tech later.” It was an offhand comment, but it got me thinking: just how much of tech proper was doing the same thing? You might interpret this kind of move as mere technological laziness in an established industry, but you would be wrong. My friend faithfully applied a strategy used by countless AI-branded companies around the world. Google was able to market its Duplex service as a personal AI tool even while it required human assistance in 40 percent of its calls a year after launch: 25 percent of the calls began with a human and 15 percent of the rest required

Maxim Hopman/Man examines video screens My friend had recently gained a renewed appreciation for managing people instead of software. “Why build tech when we have interns?” he asked as we caught up. He had recently made an exit from a successful startup and was now applying his AI skills in a large non-tech industry. “I had an intern manually watch a bunch of footage today and label stuff, and called it AI. If our stakeholders really like it, then we can build the tech later.” It was an offhand comment, but it got me thinking: just how much of tech proper was doing the same thing? You might in

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