Operations chief Andrew Macdonald said he's not seeing proportional productivity gains from increasing AI costs within Uber.
This reminds me of a story...
In the social media boom of the 2010s, I was a social media professional (a new career thanks to this very tumblr account and a short-lived career because I like my mental health).
Back then, it was obvious what platforms companies needed to be on: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. Becase thatās where their customers and potential customers were.
Then, there came a rumbling through the profession. Our colleagues were told we had to be on Google+, it was going tro be the new king social platform.
A lot of social media pros got their companies or clients to jump in with both feet. Some of us, however, took a beat and asked a simple question: āWho told you Google+ was necessary?"
We asked this because it felt like the reverse process of what had come before. Previous platforms grew into something first. No one could have predicted what a cultural juggernaut Tumblr became, the result of a sense of community among the users that formed organically and was fostered by the staff. Twitter started as a place where people dropped clever one-line jokes and became the largest and most critical breaking news outlet in thr world (RIP Twitter).
But, in the case of Google+, no one seemed to be rushing to the platform. The user base was nearly non-existant. Yet, the buzz that it would be the next big thing was loud and, for that reason, many comapnies started official accounts and shifted a part of their social strategy to the platform. But still, if the numbers werenāt there, who was saying this?
The source of this new push to join Google+, it turned out, inevitably led back to Google. Yes, upper level Google staff had been telling tech bros, investors, and tastemakers Google+ was the future of social media. That trickled down to us plebes, the ones who would dutifully fulfill the prophecy.
Needless to say, it wasnāt the future of social media. It was a trainwreck that saw its few actual users spend 3-5 seconds per day on the platform compared to the hours per day people spent on Facebook.
Now, the ābuyerās remorseā over AI weāre seeing from all of these corporations feels very similar. Itās not users saying we need AI in every goddamn fucking thing, itās AI companies. They're pushing a product tech overlords claim is the solution to a host of non-existant problems. And the comapnies got in line.
The difference this time is two-fold: Us plebes and commoners are fighting back and the companies that bought in are losing money. (At least a Google+ account was free.)
But, the truly shocking revelation is how fucking gullible these big CEOs are. They were told by AI salesmen that their already successful product will only continue to succeed if they bake in AI.
And what happened? One super fun example is how Google touted themselves as the best search engine in the world. Now, the first result on any search is an AI summary, followed with this warning in very small print:
That seems like a pretty clear admission that Google is not a reliable search engine any more.
So, I guess the moral of this story is: If you want to sell something for millions of dollars that no one needs, talk to a CEO.
Bonus moral: Google Search is the Google+ of Google.
this seems like a good opportunity to recommend "Brainwash an Executive Today!" by Nik Suresh, who covers this idea in a bit more detail
TLDR: "There is a massive industry that is built around gathering people that fit the 'thinks LinkedIn is studying' profile into rooms, who also have access to organizational money, and then charging sales teams for permission to get into that room."
