#aihype — Public Fediverse posts

I never thought I’d be conceding that tech has become a fucking religion. Then I heard VPs, grown-ass adults with budget authority over actual human beings, describe themselves as “true believers” in AI.

“True believers.” Their actual God damned words. Not “I evaluated the evidence.” Not “here’s where it works and where it fails.” Belief. Faith. In a statistical text generator they could not explain if you held their bonus, wife, and LLM-parented offspring hostage.

Here’s what makes my blood boil about faith in the board room, VP sphere and C-suite: a true believer needs no Real fucking evidence, so no verifiable evidence will ever change their minds unless it hits their bank account. Or over-indexed investments in AI. They mandate AI for problems it can’t solve and impact the lives of the people who could solve those problems if they were given half the empowerment they give their faith-enhanced savior tech. They cargo-cult whatever the flashiest vendors (who’ve been around less time than the Switch 2 has been out, but are now self-professed AI experts) preached at the last overhyped AI conference. And when someone walks in with data that contradicts the gospel, that person gets branded a heretic, “resistant to change”, ostracized and increasingly, much worse. The one real fucking adult in the room gets managed out while the congregation nods along. The only way to survive is to keep singing from the fuckwit hymn book and hope the worship ceremony ends soon.

I’ve spent almost 30 years breaking software, hardware, security, performance, etc. for a living. Everything. Has. Fucking. Failure. Modes. EVERYTHING. My entire discipline exists because every company that ever said “trust me, it works” and wanted to bypass expert validation, real actual disciplined work, got burned to the fucking ground by it. The “dark factory” board room wet dream of AI will be more like the company burning itself to the ground in the pursuit of salvation.

These high level company people aren’t leading. They’re witnessing. Your VP doesn’t understand the technology, he understands the sermon, and now your roadmap is a fucking prosperity gospel: believe harder, sacrifice your best engineers on the altar, and the ROI will surely come.

It won’t. It never does. But it will impact the real lives of real people with real skills while rewarding the charlatans who keep right on fooling the idiots who are fine with being wrong because being wrong is the safe bet when the majority of the idiot US economy is betting on the same tech-as-savior.

When it all goes to shit, the AI tech dudebros will just rebrand the diminished shit as “2.0.” Or their asinine “New Testament.”

#AI #AIHype #TechLeadership #Quality #Enshittification

I never thought I’d be conceding that tech has become a fucking religion. Then I heard VPs, grown-ass adults with budget authority over actual human beings, describe themselves as “true believers” in AI.

“True believers.” Their actual God damned words. Not “I evaluated the evidence.” Not “here’s where it works and where it fails.” Belief. Faith. In a statistical text generator they could not explain if you held their bonus, wife, and LLM-parented offspring hostage.

Here’s what makes my blood boil about faith in the board room, VP sphere and C-suite: a true believer needs no Real fucking evidence, so no verifiable evidence will ever change their minds unless it hits their bank account. Or over-indexed investments in AI. They mandate AI for problems it can’t solve and impact the lives of the people who could solve those problems if they were given half the empowerment they give their faith-enhanced savior tech. They cargo-cult whatever the flashiest vendors (who’ve been around less time than the Switch 2 has been out, but are now self-professed AI experts) preached at the last overhyped AI conference. And when someone walks in with data that contradicts the gospel, that person gets branded a heretic, “resistant to change”, ostracized and increasingly, much worse. The one real fucking adult in the room gets managed out while the congregation nods along. The only way to survive is to keep singing from the fuckwit hymn book and hope the worship ceremony ends soon.

I’ve spent almost 30 years breaking software, hardware, security, performance, etc. for a living. Everything. Has. Fucking. Failure. Modes. EVERYTHING. My entire discipline exists because every company that ever said “trust me, it works” and wanted to bypass expert validation, real actual disciplined work, got burned to the fucking ground by it. The “dark factory” board room wet dream of AI will be more like the company burning itself to the ground in the pursuit of salvation.

These high level company people aren’t leading. They’re witnessing. Your VP doesn’t understand the technology, he understands the sermon, and now your roadmap is a fucking prosperity gospel: believe harder, sacrifice your best engineers on the altar, and the ROI will surely come.

It won’t. It never does. But it will impact the real lives of real people with real skills while rewarding the charlatans who keep right on fooling the idiots who are fine with being wrong because being wrong is the safe bet when the majority of the idiot US economy is betting on the same tech-as-savior.

When it all goes to shit, the AI tech dudebros will just rebrand the diminished shit as “2.0.” Or their asinine “New Testament.”

#AI #AIHype #TechLeadership #Quality #Enshittification

I never thought I’d be conceding that tech has become a fucking religion. Then I heard VPs, grown-ass adults with budget authority over actual human beings, describe themselves as “true believers” in AI.

“True believers.” Their actual God damned words. Not “I evaluated the evidence.” Not “here’s where it works and where it fails.” Belief. Faith. In a statistical text generator they could not explain if you held their bonus, wife, and LLM-parented offspring hostage.

Here’s what makes my blood boil about faith in the board room, VP sphere and C-suite: a true believer needs no Real fucking evidence, so no verifiable evidence will ever change their minds unless it hits their bank account. Or over-indexed investments in AI. They mandate AI for problems it can’t solve and impact the lives of the people who could solve those problems if they were given half the empowerment they give their faith-enhanced savior tech. They cargo-cult whatever the flashiest vendors (who’ve been around less time than the Switch 2 has been out, but are now self-professed AI experts) preached at the last overhyped AI conference. And when someone walks in with data that contradicts the gospel, that person gets branded a heretic, “resistant to change”, ostracized and increasingly, much worse. The one real fucking adult in the room gets managed out while the congregation nods along. The only way to survive is to keep singing from the fuckwit hymn book and hope the worship ceremony ends soon.

I’ve spent almost 30 years breaking software, hardware, security, performance, etc. for a living. Everything. Has. Fucking. Failure. Modes. EVERYTHING. My entire discipline exists because every company that ever said “trust me, it works” and wanted to bypass expert validation, real actual disciplined work, got burned to the fucking ground by it. The “dark factory” board room wet dream of AI will be more like the company burning itself to the ground in the pursuit of salvation.

These high level company people aren’t leading. They’re witnessing. Your VP doesn’t understand the technology, he understands the sermon, and now your roadmap is a fucking prosperity gospel: believe harder, sacrifice your best engineers on the altar, and the ROI will surely come.

It won’t. It never does. But it will impact the real lives of real people with real skills while rewarding the charlatans who keep right on fooling the idiots who are fine with being wrong because being wrong is the safe bet when the majority of the idiot US economy is betting on the same tech-as-savior.

When it all goes to shit, the AI tech dudebros will just rebrand the diminished shit as “2.0.” Or their asinine “New Testament.”

#AI #AIHype #TechLeadership #Quality #Enshittification

I never thought I’d be conceding that tech has become a fucking religion. Then I heard VPs, grown-ass adults with budget authority over actual human beings, describe themselves as “true believers” in AI.

“True believers.” Their actual God damned words. Not “I evaluated the evidence.” Not “here’s where it works and where it fails.” Belief. Faith. In a statistical text generator they could not explain if you held their bonus, wife, and LLM-parented offspring hostage.

Here’s what makes my blood boil about faith in the board room, VP sphere and C-suite: a true believer needs no Real fucking evidence, so no verifiable evidence will ever change their minds unless it hits their bank account. Or over-indexed investments in AI. They mandate AI for problems it can’t solve and impact the lives of the people who could solve those problems if they were given half the empowerment they give their faith-enhanced savior tech. They cargo-cult whatever the flashiest vendors (who’ve been around less time than the Switch 2 has been out, but are now self-professed AI experts) preached at the last overhyped AI conference. And when someone walks in with data that contradicts the gospel, that person gets branded a heretic, “resistant to change”, ostracized and increasingly, much worse. The one real fucking adult in the room gets managed out while the congregation nods along. The only way to survive is to keep singing from the fuckwit hymn book and hope the worship ceremony ends soon.

I’ve spent almost 30 years breaking software, hardware, security, performance, etc. for a living. Everything. Has. Fucking. Failure. Modes. EVERYTHING. My entire discipline exists because every company that ever said “trust me, it works” and wanted to bypass expert validation, real actual disciplined work, got burned to the fucking ground by it. The “dark factory” board room wet dream of AI will be more like the company burning itself to the ground in the pursuit of salvation.

These high level company people aren’t leading. They’re witnessing. Your VP doesn’t understand the technology, he understands the sermon, and now your roadmap is a fucking prosperity gospel: believe harder, sacrifice your best engineers on the altar, and the ROI will surely come.

It won’t. It never does. But it will impact the real lives of real people with real skills while rewarding the charlatans who keep right on fooling the idiots who are fine with being wrong because being wrong is the safe bet when the majority of the idiot US economy is betting on the same tech-as-savior.

When it all goes to shit, the AI tech dudebros will just rebrand the diminished shit as “2.0.” Or their asinine “New Testament.”

#AI #AIHype #TechLeadership #Quality #Enshittification

I never thought I’d be conceding that tech has become a fucking religion. Then I heard VPs, grown-ass adults with budget authority over actual human beings, describe themselves as “true believers” in AI.

“True believers.” Their actual God damned words. Not “I evaluated the evidence.” Not “here’s where it works and where it fails.” Belief. Faith. In a statistical text generator they could not explain if you held their bonus, wife, and LLM-parented offspring hostage.

Here’s what makes my blood boil about faith in the board room, VP sphere and C-suite: a true believer needs no Real fucking evidence, so no verifiable evidence will ever change their minds unless it hits their bank account. Or over-indexed investments in AI. They mandate AI for problems it can’t solve and impact the lives of the people who could solve those problems if they were given half the empowerment they give their faith-enhanced savior tech. They cargo-cult whatever the flashiest vendors (who’ve been around less time than the Switch 2 has been out, but are now self-professed AI experts) preached at the last overhyped AI conference. And when someone walks in with data that contradicts the gospel, that person gets branded a heretic, “resistant to change”, ostracized and increasingly, much worse. The one real fucking adult in the room gets managed out while the congregation nods along. The only way to survive is to keep singing from the fuckwit hymn book and hope the worship ceremony ends soon.

I’ve spent almost 30 years breaking software, hardware, security, performance, etc. for a living. Everything. Has. Fucking. Failure. Modes. EVERYTHING. My entire discipline exists because every company that ever said “trust me, it works” and wanted to bypass expert validation, real actual disciplined work, got burned to the fucking ground by it. The “dark factory” board room wet dream of AI will be more like the company burning itself to the ground in the pursuit of salvation.

These high level company people aren’t leading. They’re witnessing. Your VP doesn’t understand the technology, he understands the sermon, and now your roadmap is a fucking prosperity gospel: believe harder, sacrifice your best engineers on the altar, and the ROI will surely come.

It won’t. It never does. But it will impact the real lives of real people with real skills while rewarding the charlatans who keep right on fooling the idiots who are fine with being wrong because being wrong is the safe bet when the majority of the idiot US economy is betting on the same tech-as-savior.

When it all goes to shit, the AI tech dudebros will just rebrand the diminished shit as “2.0.” Or their asinine “New Testament.”

#AI #AIHype #TechLeadership #Quality #Enshittification