The Hype Driving Artificial Intelligence

I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again

Probably only of interest to the hardcore geeks. And there are more than a few F-bombs.

The guy behind Lucidity is an actual data scientist who knows machine learning - one branch of AI, not currently as popular as the Large Language Models like ChatGPT.

So it is with great regret that I announce that the next person to talk about rolling out AI is going to receive a complimentary chiropractic adjustment in the style of Dr. Bourne, i.e, I am going to fucking break your neck. I am truly, deeply, sorry.

First it was blockchain and NFTs. I'm sure there were any number of TED talks on how blockchain was going to revolutionize the [pick your favorite] industry. (Does anyone remember Bored Ape NFTs?)

Actually first it was Bubble Memory - but that dates to the prehistory of the 1980s. Then it Dot Com insanity of the 1990s. Then it was real estate before the crash. Then it was blockchain and NFTs. Go read Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay. It was published in 1841. At least read the chapter on the Tulip Mania in volume 1.

Now it is AI. Even though ChatGPT told people to put glue on their pizza, and Google's Gemini gave someone the instructions for brewing botulism toxin when they were trying to infuse garlic into olive oil (could have/would have killed their entire family), AI is all the rage.

The number of companies launching AI initiatives far outstripped the number of actual use cases. Most of the market was simply grifters and incompetents (sometimes both!) leveraging the hype to inflate their headcount so they could get promoted, or be seen as thought leaders.

If you want to spend money on something, how about you bolster your ability to recover from a ransomware attack.

Whenever there is a ransomware attack, it is revealed with clockwork precision that no one has tested the backups for six months and half the legacy systems cannot be resuscitated - something that I have personally seen twice in four fucking years. Do you know how insane that is?

If you're interested in technology, or the madness of crowds, and want to see a takedown of AI by a guy with the credentials then click thru. There is a fair amount on the grifters in tech, the opportunists in the corporate suites, and the state of technology.

Hat tip to Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony with Daily News Stuff 21 June 2024: Also Also With Edition.

Man has opinions. The opinions are mostly correct though.

After the break you will find a poem by Kipling that these situations always bring to mind, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." Something about the insanity with which business pursues AI reminds me of the perpetual search for the easy answer.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

     by Rudyard Kipling

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!