The promise of generative AI is exaggerated in the short-term and underestimated in the long-term leading to an uncontrollable hype.
Naturally, many choose to ride this hype with false advertisement to further their agenda — whether it is to drive up stock prices or to win customers.
BBC recently referred this false misrepresentation of the benefits of AI (to businesses) as “AI washing”:
It is a problem that has quietly existed for a number of years, according to data from another tech investment firm, MMC Ventures. In a 2019 study it found that 40% of new tech firms that described themselves as “AI start-ups” in fact used virtually no AI at all.
Amazon itself decieved customers into thinking that their “Just Walk Out” technology — that powered Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go shops — was primarly driven by AI. It turned out that the system was supported by hundreds of works manually checking over 70% of the transactions.
While should eventually expect regulation to tame the false promises of AI to customer, in the short term we must adapt to ridiculous ads like an AI driven toothbrush.
People charged with developing AI solutions have the impossible task to taming expectations and disabusing the believe the stakeholder have about AI being a silverbullet.