Amarita Natt, Ph.D. 's comment on the "AI Peas" post reminded me of the old "CEO of Oreos" sketch.

Which, in turn, reminded me that I'd written about this before. In my August 2024 newsletter, about the then-new "Add Me" feature in the Pixel 9 phones:

Add Me is a warning sign. A blinking red light that companies have squeezed their product teams so hard on AI that they're cooking up nonsense. Perhaps as a cry for help.

Where else have I seen this? You're probably reaching for the Dot-Com craze, but I was thinking of this old Dropout (née CollegeHumor) video about Oreo cookies. The premise is that the company keeps conjuring up new flavors for the sake of marketing.

The entire video is quoteworthy, but the line about a "sinful glut of bullshit Oreos" crowding the cookie aisle rings in my ears whenever I read AI news. A similarly sinful glut of bullshit AI products risks choking the field before we reach the truly mind-blowing, long-term impact, changed-the-world-for-the-better use cases.

I don't know what to do about that. Asking the AI fans to tone down the toxic optimism is a surefire way to get them to double down on it. Especially since half of them have an economic incentive in keeping the dream afloat. Yet ignoring them has the same effect.