Sometimes AI is as Dumb as a Rock.

That time that I fired a genius (Note: Duh! AI generated image.)

As Fray and I hunker down on our new business (Pacheco Insurance Services), we haven't had much choice but to lean into AI. It is kind of miraculous but using artificial intelligence is like hiring the most talented employee you've ever met—and discovering almost immediately that they're unmanageable and insubordinate. They're brilliant, unbelievably fast, work 24/7 and can accomplish three hours of work in 30 seconds. Unfortunately, they also seem to regard your instructions as interesting suggestions from middle management.

Anyone who's used AI image generation knows the most dangerous sentence you can type:

“Perfect. Just make one tiny change.” You've finally got the image exactly right. The people, room, lighting—everything. You just need one man's head 10% smaller because he looks like a bobblehead.

The new image arrives. His head is smaller but unfortunately, he's wearing different clothes, the furniture has moved, there's a new window, and someone in the background has six fingers. W the actual F?!? It's like asking an employee to move a chair three feet to the left and returning to discover they've renovated the building.

Maybe it should be renamed "Human Intelligence" rather than "Artificial" to reflect it's imperfect status? AI image generators have some notorious quirks. Hands and fingers have historically been challenging. We created one image in which the subject actually had three arms. Text can emerge as mysterious hieroglyphics. Left and right occasionally become philosophical concepts. And asking AI to change "one thing and nothing else" apparently constitutes an unreasonable level of micromanagement. And AI's "skill" with the human face has to be the most affordable but mandatory botox yet devised. I WISH I looked like AI implies that I do.

Then there's the hubris. Sure, AI can brilliantly explain an complicated subject. But occasionally it will provide an equally convincing explanation of something that isn't true just because it can't admit it doesn't know. The industry calls these “hallucinations.” HR might call it “making stuff up.”

Because AI really is extraordinary, in every sense of that word. It can brainstorm, research, summarize, translate, analyze and create at astonishing speed. Five minutes after driving you insane, it will do something so impressive that you remember why you hired it.

So you sigh, open the prompt box again and type: “This is perfect. Please change ONLY the following… But ONLY that! Don't touch anything else.”

And somewhere inside it's little electronic neural network, your essentially-perfect-but-highly-flawed employee cracks its digital knuckles and prepares to redecorate the office.