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'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

theguardian.com

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Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#31

Post by jknoepfler »

duttish wrote: post #24
root_axis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a pivot though, is it? As I understand it, the company went bust and sold their branding to a different company that wants to do AI infra.

What I saw somewhere, don't know if it's true or a rumour, was that it was a wallstreet guy offering them $5M for if he could shift the strategy. So be bought a _lot_ of shares of the very cheap pre-pivot price, paid them $5M for the pivot, sold the shares at the now 600% stock increase. Netted a tidy profit after the $5M. They didn't trade company fundamentals, they traded the market sentiment.

a.k.a. textbook bubble behavior

Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#32

Post by KennyBlanken »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #22
gum_wobble wrote: post #14

> PR executives say UK companies are forcing them to present ordinary automation as artificial intelligence What a time to be alive

Yup. Also ML is called AI now too at least as far as hiring managers are concerned. Adjust your resume accordingly.

"now"? The appliance industry pretty much hit the "label everything AI" button...again...within months of ChatGPT taking off.

Last time around was when "fuzzy logic" came out, I think?

Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#33

Post by simianwords »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #2

I'd love to read the mind of an investor that actually falls for this shit. Who actually thinks that Allbirds will see much higher returns because they "have an AI graphics division?" I like AI, but seriously, who actually invests on this basis? Where is the critical thinking? I don't feel sympathy for any investor that gets rug pulled on this stuff.

>I like AI, but seriously, who actually invests on this basis? Where is the critical thinking? I don't feel sympathy for any investor that gets rug pulled on this stuff.

They don't and the people who are falling for this rhetoric are naive. Most investors _should_ invest more in AI companies. And most companies _should_ invest in AI. It is the rational move and it is exactly what we are seeing here. I don't know what the hysteria is about.

Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#34

Post by dawnerd »

root_axis wrote: post #13
jamwise wrote: post #11

My favourite is Allbirds that pivoted from eco friendly shoes to AI infrastructure. How do you even make that decision?

It's not really a pivot though, is it? As I understand it, the company went bust and sold their branding to a different company that wants to do AI infra.

Didn’t even sell the branding since that got sold to the same company that buys up all sorts of brands. The ai “pivot” was a blatant last ditch effort to milk some of the stock. It’s nothing more than fraud.

Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#36

Post by baxtr »

gum_wobble wrote: post #14

> PR executives say UK companies are forcing them to present ordinary automation as artificial intelligence What a time to be alive

Fun times. Although I find it hard to blame them tbh.

They’re incentived to do so because apparently investors don’t understand the difference.

Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#37

Post by amanaplanacanal »

simianwords wrote: post #28

I think a lot of people are secretly wishing for AI to be like the crypto grift but are in for a rude shock when it is definitely not going to end up like that. We will see more and more companies become AI driven and produce AI products. To think otherwise is naive.

No doubt we will see more companies. Will they be able to actually make enough profit to justify their valuations? That remains to be seen.

Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#38

Post by Sharlin »

gum_wobble wrote: post #14

> PR executives say UK companies are forcing them to present ordinary automation as artificial intelligence What a time to be alive

To be fair, that’s not exactly a new thing, it’s just sensitive to the exact phase of the Great AI Freeze/Thaw Cycle. A lot of now-ordinary automation used to be "AI" until it become commonplace and no longer buzzword-worthy and thus no longer regarded as "AI", and/or an AI winter hit.

Last time that AI was big before DL it was the "big data" fad and everything had to be big data. Marketing has never not been about how to disguise "what we already do" as the newest buzzword that customers (or investors) want to hear.

The same goes, of course, for all the non-AI fads like "the cloud" or "NoSQL".

Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#39

Post by simianwords »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #37
simianwords wrote: post #28

I think a lot of people are secretly wishing for AI to be like the crypto grift but are in for a rude shock when it is definitely not going to end up like that. We will see more and more companies become AI driven and produce AI products. To think otherwise is naive.

No doubt we will see more companies. Will they be able to actually make enough profit to justify their valuations? That remains to be seen.

Its part of the process - some will live and some will not. But larger parts of the economy are going to be AI weighted and it will only keep increasing.

Re: 'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

#40

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

simianwords wrote: post #25

There's this new misplaced belief that most how of stock market works is by fooling the stock market with short term plays like this rebranding and then cashing out. Its attractive and speaks to the cynic in us. The article gives three examples - Allbirds, a shoe company - A genetics company marketing that it is using AI - a property tech company using AI to create 3rd landscapes The Allbirds one is just financial re…

What the source article says is that it's a "property company" generating a "floor plan". The PR account director quoted is skeptical that their tool to do this actually is AI in a meaningful sense, but he feels that he must advertise it as AI anyway because everyone's doing it.

This is important not just for cynical reasons, but to calibrate exactly what it means when we look around and see that "everyone" is using AI these days.

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