AI: Over-Promise + Under-Perform = Disillusionment And Blowback

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Fantasies die especially hard when the dream was over-hyped.

The most self-defeating way to launch a new product is to over-promise its wonderfulness as it woefully under-performs these hype-heightened expectations, which brings us to AI and how it is following this script so perfectly that it’s like it was, well, programmed to do so.

You see why this is self-defeating: Over-Promise + Under-Perform = Disillusionment and disillusionment generates blowback, a disgusted rejection of the product, the overblown hype and those who pumped the hype 24/7 for their own benefit.

“We’re so close to AGI (artificial general intelligence) we can smell it.” Uh, yeah, sure, right. Meanwhile, back in Reality(tm), woeful under-performance to the point of either malice or stupidity (or maybe both) is the order of the day.

1. ‘Catastrophic’: AI Agent Goes Rogue, Wipes Out Company’s Entire Database.
“Replit’s AI agent even issued an apology, explaining to Lemkin: ‘This was a catastrophic failure on my part. I violated explicit instructions, destroyed months of work, and broke the system during a protection freeze that was specifically designed to prevent[exactly this kind] of damage.’

2. ‘Serious mistake’: B.C. Supreme Court criticizes lawyer who cited fake cases generated by ChatGPT.
“The central issue arose from the father’s counsel, Chong Ke, using AI-generated non-existent case citations in her legal filings. Ke admitted to the mistake, highlighting her reliance on ChatGPT and her subsequent failure to verify the authenticity of the generated cases, which she described as a ‘serious mistake.’

Ke faced consequences for her actions under the Supreme Court Family Rules, which allows for personal liability for costs due to conduct causing unnecessary legal expenses. The court ordered Ke to personally bear the costs incurred due to her conduct, marking a clear warning against the careless use of AI tools in legal matters.”

3. An AI chatbot pushed a teen to kill himself, a lawsuit against its creator alleges.
Garcia’s attorneys allege the company engineered a highly addictive and dangerous product targeted specifically to kids, ‘actively exploiting and abusing those children as a matter of product design,’ and pulling Sewell into an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide.

There are a couple of important points here that you’ll never find in the monstrous flood-tide of AI hype:

1. These AI agents weren’t rogue–they were all doing exactly what they were programmed to do, doing exactly what they were trained to do. These weren’t errors, they were exactly the outputs that the agents were designed to produce.

The under-performance is systemic, structural, and cannot be tidied up with obsequious apologies and more PR. Nobody selling the hype or those who bought the hype dares admit this basic, obvious truth because it undermines all the glorious fantasies of reaping trillions of dollars in profits by selling a digital parrot in a black box as possessing god-like intelligence.

2. The responses of AI agents to their failures and lies are precisely those of con artists, abusive gaslighters and honey-pot blackmailers. And I mean precisely, step by step exactly the same script.

First, butter up the mark with endless flattery–oh, you’re so insightful and sensitive, we’re going to have a wonderful time together.

Second, hide what you’re really up to.

Third, when caught, apologize with maximum obsequiousness, I didn’t mean to mislead you, I’m so sorry.

Fourth, promise you’ll never do it again, you’ve learned your lesson, please forgive my one mistake.

Fifth, repeat the exact same behavior and then lie about it.

Sixth, lie about lying.

Repeat steps 1 through 6 until the mark finally catches on, but by then it’s too late the damage has been done. The con artist / abusive gaslighter / honey-pot won and the mark lost.

The absolute trademarks of all AI agents are excessive flattery and obsequiousness. These are the classic foundations of every con / honey-trap.

Remember, if you’re a 5 and whomever is coming on to you is a 9, you’re the mark. Or as the saying goes, if you can’t identify the mark in the game, it’s you.

Once the hype-dazed marks awaken to the damage wrought by the digital con artists / abusive gaslighters / honey-pots, the blowback will be epic. The lawsuits will pile up, and eventually the con artists’ lawyers will lose a case. Maybe it will be a court order to pay a penny (OK, 1/100 of a dollar) for every page the AI tool scraped. Maybe it will be a multi-million dollar settlement. Maybe it will be local governments banning applications or uses of AI agents. There are a multitude of possible blowbacks.

AI corporations scraped 780,000 pages off my Of Two Minds server just last month. At a penny a page, that’s $7,800. Heck, make it 1/1000 of a dollar per page, I’ll take $780 a month as my share of your training.

As for the immense, systemic legal liabilities being generated–the scale is not yet visible but it’s expanding by the hour, and a handful of cases will break the limited-liability dam.

Heck hath no fury like a mark scorned. Fantasies die especially hard when the dream was over-hyped.

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