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Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

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Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#41

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

Isamu wrote: post #13

AI investment and spending is frequently cited as one of the few bright spots in the economy, I wonder if the continued over-optimism is mostly about keeping the bubble inflated. If you are a tech CEO, would it be a disservice to your shareholders to express skepticism about AI?

I think this cuts to the point about democracy but if all the people somehow want something negative for themselves short term or long term, if you are the leader should you do what the public is saying or not?

I think there's more nuance to it but replace people with shareholder and leader with CEO.

I think that for a company to exist and thrive long term, it might need a culture which doesn't jump on every trend but it still evaluates them from time for time for a certain time and treat them as such (like tools) and if the tool is ineffective, then to not use the tool.

Unfortunately, I feel like this requires a deeper discourse and CTO's might be better suited for it or the fact that I feel like perhaps some shareholders might not be interested in the technical details so much.

I don't know but If I were a leader I would hopefully wish to make a pragmatic solution/suggestion while taking finances, current reality in mind and currently IMO AI aren't the end all, be all, that some people (with shrewd/double incentives) intend on suggesting.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#42

Post by righthand »

It’s more than the C-Suite, it’s everyone who no longer has a knowledge specialty. Their domain is shattered and there is nothing left for them because before LLMs all they did anyway was search for companies to contract out an integration to solve a niche problem. 99% of the C-suites/boards are now this. Your IT guy, scrum master, Product lead, integration team, etc. Everyone who’s chosen to NOT understand because they can offload/contract-away their work and knowledge is under psychosis that LLMs know best.

You cannot discuss tradeoffs with anyone anymore because they chose to give their brain and authority away to a statistically incorrect robot. The LLM has already generated potential tradeoffs real or not.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#43

Post by shmeeed »

trhway wrote: post #10
rafram wrote: post #4

Clickbait title. Should be more like "Box founder Aaron Levie says CEOs should use AI more and learn its limitations." He's essentially saying that C-suite people overestimate how effective LLMs are at one-shotting hard problems, and underestimate the human maintenance work that follows.

who knows, may they are right, and 36 subagents can produce one AI baby in 1 week.

And maybe it's got 6 fingers on each hand.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#44

Post by trhway »

jdw64 wrote: post #3

Tech CEOs are suffering from AI psychosis over next quarter's earnings, while I'm suffering from RI(Rent Installment) psychosis. It makes me wonder if human beings are simply hardwired to suffer from some form of obsession-whether it's FOMO or financial pressure

>if human beings are simply hardwired to suffer from some form of obsession

the powerful obsession machinery brought us through the long natural selection process - obsession to watch for snakes and spiders, to maintain cleanliness, etc. With modern civilization we arranged to plug into that powerful machinery other stimuli too - like that RI and all the others making us productive society members. The most happy countries aren't most productive. Especially when they are obsessed with being happy like those Finns obsessed with sauna instead of tokenmaxxing.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#45

Post by roadside_picnic »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #6

Using "psychosis" is a cheap rhetorical trick. There's no need to label something "psychosis" when making your point, except to automatically discredit whatever you're responding to. In other words, only people who are afraid their point won't stand on its own merits would resort to saying "X is suffering from AI psychosis." An idea is true or false on its own. If you're resorting to labels, you're just trying to aut…

It also underplays what I've personally witnessed that I would consider true AI psychosis.

I worked with someone who sincerely believed he was spiritually co-evolving with his army of sycophantic AI agents (the agents would be tasked with discussing his thoughts at night and collaborated to give him morning reports about his progress). He would publicly write about how relationships with friends and family collapsing was a natural consequence of being so "advanced". I also never once saw any meaningful work done by his team of "agents", they existed solely tell him how smart he was (of course he specifically set up the system to 'challenge' him but... in practice that didn't seem to be working).

I suspect there are a lot more people quietly going through something similar but keeping it to themselves better.

I would distinguish this type of behavior from people who over ambitious views of what can be accomplished with AI.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#47

Post by spprashant »

Brendinooo wrote: post #36

It's hardly a tech CEO thing, and I dunno if "psychosis" is a fair or accurate way to talk about it. I worked with someone who was kind of a Shopify power user, managed the store, could do a lot of things, but wasn't a programmer. She showed me how Shopify does that AI block generator now to deliver something that was like 65% done in a minute. I also have a friend who knows enough code to be dangerous in WordPress:…

AI psychosis just a lazy term, much like Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It sounds hostile while also removing any scope for productive discourse.

Once you call someone a 'psycho', they are less likely to engage with you, and more likely to double down on their views.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#49

Post by christkv »

john_strinlai wrote: post #12

whats being described is in no way unique to ai. " In other words, Levie’s theory posits, CEOs don’t really understand processes well enough to know what really can and can’t be automated. But that lack of knowledge doesn’t stop them from acting on their beliefs. " i have been in the workforce for a long time. this "theory" has been theorized since as far back as i can remember. its the premise of undercover boss. it…

lol just reminds me of the SNL sketch about Kylo Ren undercover boss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaOSCASqLsE

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#50

Post by egorfine »

It's not exclusive to CEOs.

Even senior developers can succumb to it. They try agentic development, they see that a single prompt can generate a day's worth of work in mere minutes _and it works_ and they are so impressed that they immediately turn to Twitter to share the joy. Understandable!

Once they inevitably discover that the AI generated code is called "slop" for a reason, they are too embarrassed to post to Twitter that they were deluded.

Sometimes that happens though: a few days ago a developer on Twitter bragged that they have created a C to Metal compiler using AI and it works. Today they had to post regrets, explaining that nothing works except tests and the code is shit. Sadly can't find the tweet though.

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