The Caffeine Problem With AI

There's a meme about caffeine: “Do stupid things faster and with more energy.”

That's how most companies are about to use AI.

Rory Sutherland calls it the first phase of AI adoption: “the same, worse, but cheaper.” Replace humans with automated systems to save money, destroy the customer experience in the process. Self-checkout started as a convenience option, became mandatory for margins, and now everyone hates it and shoplifting is up. The savings looked great on a spreadsheet. The second-order effects didn't.

AI makes it faster and cheaper to do things. It doesn't tell you whether you're doing the right things. That's the marketer's job — not the ads, the way we think. A room full of engineers and finance people will optimize a process into the ground without ever asking how it makes someone feel.

“If you don't have a marketer in the room, you're at risk of doing something fucking stupid.”

I'd hang that on the wall.