"This is called failure. There’s no other name for it."
"2025 has been the year of garbage culture. ...
"But something has changed in the last few days. ...
"[P]eople are disgusted, and finally pushing back. And they are doing so with such fervor that even the biggest AI companies are now getting nervous and pulling back. ...
"I’m focused here on AI’s destructive impact on culture, but there are other signs that growing AI resistance is now forcing companies to reconsider their bot mania.
"'An IBM survey of 2,000 chief executives found three out of four AI projects failed to show a return on investment, a remarkably high failure rate,' reports Andrew Orlowski. 'AI agents fail to complete the job successfully about 65 to 70 percent of the time, says a study by Carnegie Mellon University and Salesforce.'
"He also shared the results of a devastating test that debunked AI’s status in its favorite field, namely writing code. This study reveals that software developers think they are operating 20% faster with AI, but they’re actually running 19% slower.
"Some companies are bringing back human workers because AI can’t deliver positive results. Even AI researchers are now expressing skepticism. And only 30% of AI project leaders can say that their CEOs are happy with AI results.
"This is called failure. There’s no other name for it."
~ Ted Gioia from his post 'We Are Winning!'
1 comment:
It is very early days for this stuff- too early to pretend it's a failure or that its demise is on hand. Very premature.
Last week I tested Grok by tasking it to write some G-code to drive a CNC machining centre to manufacture a complex component. Grok took a few seconds to deliver the code- hundreds of instructions. I printed out a paper copy. It is 11 pages. I proved the new code out on a simulator. All fine. Then I ran it on the machining centre using a jogging function to test it. All good. Now it has been running on the machining centre unattended. All good.
This has saved days of skilled labour time. That's thousands of dollars saved. Our CNC centre operates 133 hours/week up-time. Most of the time it is unattended. It has high productivity. Much more than two entire shifts of manual machinists can produce. It attains high quality and repeatability. Much superior to a double shift of said machinists. One operator can run four machining centres of its type by himself. Most of the time human supervision or intervention is not required. The machines have automatic pallet-loaders and tool carousels.
Until now it required a team of designers and coders operating 40+ hours/week to keep the machining centre fed with work. Now it doesn't. This is a big change. Previously it was blue collar workers whose numbers we reduced. Now it is white collar for the reduction.
Now this is the hard stuff - skilled jobs that require serious education and experience. And we can already remove them, starting now- today. Now think about all the make work and nonsense jobs that are can be disappeared. There are many, many, many cubicles that can be emptied. There are many, many, many lawyers and accountants and planners and bureaucrats and paper pushers of all breeds that are surplus. There are doctors and middling "managers" and analysts and consultants and administrators that are surplus. The numbers of these jobs will sharply reduce. Many people are going to need to find something new to do... if they can.
It is early days. This has a long way to go yet. You wouldn't want to play the luddite or be complacent about it. Big changes are afoot. Some of us will suffer. It would be better to not be within that cohort.
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