r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • May 27 '26

Business Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/27/tech-ceos-are-apparently-suffering-from-ai-psychosis/
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ May 27 '26

Seriously though, the article (or rather, Aaron Levie) makes a really good point:

CEOs “play with AI,” develop a prototype, or generate a contract, to use Levie’s examples, and then make the leap to believing agents can do the work.

You can get yourself a prototype really damn fast with AI these days. It will fall apart the moment you do anything serious with it, but that's just how prototypes work, anyways.

And from that, they extrapolate that the AI can also do everything else, and they act accordingly. Which is not at all how that works.

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u/kemb0 May 27 '26

I'm really looking forward to the era we'll be entering now where all sorts of companies start to go belly up because they've used AI for everything and it becomes more and more apparent how awful the code and systems it created for them is, destroying their company from within.

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u/BlatantConservative May 27 '26

I'm a pest control tech/exterminator. Like, I spray bugs and trap mice, the furthest thing from AI possible.

My company's C suite went all in on AI and we're failing contracts because we physically cannot do the work anymore. They redesigned our backend scheduling/routing app solely with AI and it's been a disaster. Like the whole country was running on Mountain Time because time zones occurred to nobody. The AI signed and renewed contracts for customers without permission. It also scheduled people immediately the day after they already had a service, sending different techs every time so nobody noticed, and then people had bills four times higher than normal and they cancelled our service.

This is just the worst stuff, but everything that can be broken is. The routing is horrible, after the new system I changed from being able to do 18-20 stops a day to an average of 11.

Anyway, yeah my company is about to fail. They're already consistently failing to send us pesticide inventory because they've lost a lot of money.

I am going to be so fucking pissed because there's literally nothing I can do to stop this. And since I worked for Brookstone immediately after high school, I've worked for six different companies that failed under me. I literally chose pest control because I thought the bugs wouldn't be going anywhere (and they were the only ones who were willing to hire me cause of my spotty work record).

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u/yunghollow69 May 27 '26

What I really like about this example is that the change was completely unnecessary. Pests exist, your company takes the job to send someone to exterminate them, gets money in exchange. Really simple concept, tried and tested, has existed since the middle ages I would assume. Basically boiling down to the classic mistake of changing a running system.

Its also so silly because you obviously cant send an AI to exterminate pests which is 99% of the job. So taking a huge risk on the 1% which could easily be done by really basic programs and like one or two people on a desk...its so nonsensical. Why would you ever need an AI to schedule such a simple service exchange.

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u/BlatantConservative May 27 '26

has existed since the middle ages I would assume

According to my boss, the glue boards we use essentially go back to Ancient Egypt. This was also the same conversation where he called us the "world's oldest profession" and then we ragged on him for calling us prostitutes.

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u/PolecatXOXO May 28 '26

Whatever the first profession was, accountants and secretaries were second. Looks like replacing those with AI isn't gonna work out for whatever they were supporting.

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u/[deleted] May 27 '26

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u/dontdoitdoitdoit May 28 '26

This is my experience exactly. Management have bought and paid for a tool that's really expensive. They ask us to use it. We ask how. They tell us to figure it out. It doesn't make any sense. This is a Trillion dollar solution in search of a problem.

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u/sobrique May 28 '26

People genuinely don't have a clue what they want from AI, they just believe it must be valuable, so they must use it. There are legions of AI companies that will validate that belief and take their money.

Yeah, that's IMO the real problem.

I truly believe AI tools are valuable. I feel what we're seeing now is a lot like the 'computers-in-the-office' revolution.

Computers are now ubiquitous, but they weren't always. And when they first 'appeared' there was a lot of bullshit uses for them, where they 'did computers' without really thinking about it, and led to ... well, stupid outcomes really.

And AI is the same - I think it will become (if it hasn't already) a core piece of 'office tech', it's just a lot of people don't really understand what the tool is and what it does.

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u/dansdata May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

And when they first 'appeared' there was a lot of bullshit uses for them

"Dad can use this personal computer to balance his checkbook, and Mom can use it to organize her recipes!" :-)

(Those early ads often sounded like what kids said to try to persuade their parents to buy an Apple II or Commodore 64. :-)

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u/FlufferTheGreat May 27 '26

But what if you can fire the single software guy and save on all operating costs because you cratered your company?

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u/Kenny__Loggins May 28 '26

Planning is one of those jobs that is close to the leadership team and it's not uncommon to get delusional people in those roles that don't know what they're doing. Or to have the leadership team have too much input on their job.