Stuffing more intelligence into more server farms just makes AI stupider, faster with more certainty

You gave them life and in return they gave you Hell

“A motherboard on fire” is what I asked Photoshop

Aaaargh, I shout. Never again. As Gods are my witnesses, you will never catch me [insert gerund here] in future. I have learnt my lesson.

This week I was trying to report a technical problem via a chatbot. As you can imagine: aaaargh indeed.

Why would I waste my time in this way? Well, I clicked on HELP and the chatbot came up. Naturally I dismissed the dopey shit-for-brains immediately and went hunting for a proper ‘Support’ button. I found one, clicked on it and… the same chatbot came back up.

Hunting deeper into the bowels of the system, I eventually unearthed a ‘server status’ page that was little more than a static screenshot of barefaced lying green ticks, along with a ‘Report a problem’ button. I clicked on it.

The chatbot came back up.

So I ended up conversing with a Help AI that was so intellectually vacant, I may as well have been DM-ing Elon Musk. The chatbot insisted that no server issues had been reported. I told it that I am making a report right now. The chatbot told me that I was not permitted to report a problem unless I upgrade my subscription to the service. Literally, it wanted me to pay for the privilege of assisting its tech team locate an issue on their servers.

So I shouted something like aaaargh and found something else to do instead. And so no report was made and the system continued to produce server errors but – and here’s the most important thing – no green ticks were disturbed from their slumber.

I don’t mean to denigrate all forms of AI. In fact I was rather charmed by the following piece of titillating nonsense which puts a 1980s Arnie S in the midst of an ultra-bloody but sadly non-existent Star Wars sequel.