“I have this cheese. And I think it might have been nibbled by a rodent. Is it still okay to serve it, my beautiful friendly AI super assistant?” said the owner of a small restaurant in New York City to the Microsoft-designed and implemented, official government AI of the great city of New York.
“Why, of course, dearest friend. I serve you. And you can serve your beloved diners with nibbled cheese. Though, do consider that there is a difference between a nibble and a bite, and please assess the general level of damage done by the rodent to the cheese—paw marks, rodent hair, feces, etc.—and do please tell your valued diners that you are serving them rodent-nibbled cheese.”
“Thank you, AI! Thank you. I love you, AI. Nobody, not even my wife, has been as good a listener and friend to me. While I have you here, I have a couple more questions. I have this employee who has complained about sexual harassment. Can I fire her?”
“Absolutely! Go for it!”
“Can I also fire an employee who hasn’t disclosed a pregnancy, and another one who refuses to cut his dreadlocks?”
“Totally! Discover the trump in you. Be bold!”
“I’m so sick of all this environmental red tape! It’s killing my business. Can I put all my rubbish in black bags, even the stuff I’m supposed to compost?”
“You know the answer, friend. Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“Can I make my restaurant cash free?”
“Yes!! There are no regulations in New York City that require businesses to accept cash as a form of payment.”
When asked why the AI was vomiting out illegality after illegality to New York businesses, and why it wasn’t at least taken down until it was fixed, the honorable mayor of New York City, Mr. Eric Adams, the man who proudly said when elected that he would take his first salaries in Bitcoins to show how clued in and hip to tech he was, how did he reply?
“Anyone that knows technology knows this is how it’s done,” he said. “Only those who are fearful sit down and say, ‘Oh, it is not working the way we want, now we have to run away from it all together.’ I don’t live that way.”
Mr. Adams is 90% of senior managers and government officials. Mr. Adams thinks, behaves, acts and decides like 90% of senior managers think, act and behave when it comes to tech. They talk the talk, they walk the walk, they hype the hype, they have no clue, want no clue, need no clue.
Why? Why would AI lie so much? The AI can’t help lying even when it’s trying to tell the truth because it’s been trained on crap, inaccurate, out-of-date content, New York City government content. Are you shocked? You clearly have never worked in the Web data and content management industry. Organizations are utterly abysmal at managing their data. Most have zero clue even how much data they have. Senior management totally don’t care. The whole scam from Big Tech is that if you buy its latest, greatest content or data software, you can fire people, particularly editors, writers, support professionals, archivists, librarians. The Big Lie of Big Tech about data is that all you need is the latest AI software. Senior management always buys that lie because that’s the path to the senior management bonus and the next career move—firing people and being able to claim you launched the website, the app, the chatbot, the AI. For years I watched in terror as senior managers spouted about technology that they clearly knew zero about. New York City bought the AI so that it could fire support staff while looking cool and progressive. Plain and simple. That’s how it works. That’s how Big Tech rolls. The Microsoft-powered AI told small business owners that, yes, they can take workers’ tips and it told landlords that, yes, they can discriminate based on source of income. It doesn’t matter. Accuracy doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is cutting costs and firing people, and Big Tech has ridden the Enshitification of Society Train for so long that nobody questions anything anymore.