AI isn’t infallible (yet?), and companies have been feeling the pain from putting too much faith in it too soon.
Blame it on the AI
Just last month, Starbucks decided to embrace the advantages of human employees, backtracking on a host of tech-forward customer experience initiatives.
This week, financial startup Klarna admitted it was a little too overzealous in gutting its human workforce in favor of AI, per Futurism.
- In 2024, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski declared that AI could already do any human job (except maybe Klarna CEO?). A year before, his company stopped hiring actual living people.
- But now he’s walking all that back in favor of an “Uber-type of setup” where remote workers respond to customer service calls.
- Focusing solely on saving money, Siemiatkowski said, resulted in a “lower quality” of service, if you can imagine that.
They aren’t alone
Beyond worse customer service, a recent study from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon found that overuse of AI tools (or any conceptually similar tech, like a calculator) can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties.”
- Participants with too much faith in AI used less critical thinking.
- If AI makes things too easy, people become unprepared for unexpected problems.
That has now extended to the baseball field
The Baltimore Orioles are, apparently, the latest example of tech overreliance. According to an essay from 404 Media, the MLB team embraced AI and modern, data-driven decision-making and is now seeing somewhat disastrous results.
- The O’s went all in: We’re talking biofeedback like bat sensors and swing trackers, heavily leaning on computer models for draft strategy, and deploying “an AI-ified offensive strategy regimen.”
- Results were initially promising and the data suggested the team’s success would continue: A popular simulation model predicted the team would win 89 games this year (which isn’t bad).
- But they’re currently on pace to win 60 (which is bad). In fact, the Orioles have one of the worst records in baseball, serving as proof, per 404, that making a simulated World Series doesn’t translate to making the real one.
Our suggestion? Replace the Orioles’ coaching staff with an “Uber-type setup” where remote workers can make lineup decisions over the phone.
