I’ve seen reports and studies that show products advertised as including / involving AI are off-putting to consumers. And this matches what almost every person I hear irl or online says. Regardless of whether they think that in the long-term AI will be useful, problematic or apocalyptic, nobody is impressed Spotify offering a “AI DJ” or “AI coffee machines”.
I understand that AI tech companies might want to promote their own AI products if they think there’s a market for them. And they might even try to create a market by hyping the possibilities of “AI”. But rebranding your existing service or algorithms as being AI seems like super dumb move, obviously stupid for tech literate people and off-putting / scary for others. Have they just completely misjudged the world’s enthusiasm for this buzzword? Or is there some other reason?
So firstly, if you were the person running a several million dollar project which then gets cancelled, you are absolutely getting fired. If you were acting entirely in your own self interest, it would be better to make the project last as long as you can. Maybe it ends up succeding by a fluke and you keep your job?
Secondly, you’re assuming that all that money just vanishes when the product is released. The product is still out there in the market, and there are still some people will buy it. If you’re 80% of the way through the project, it might be worth spending the remaining 20% in order to recoup at least some of your costs.
People cancel projects and keep their jobs or get new ones all the time. Having the awareness that a project is junk is better for your employment long term than running through way more money and still failing miserably. The people with money notice, and other high level executives notice. Moonshots fail. Pull the damn plug when it’s not viable.
You’re not 80% of the way there. You haven’t made a dent. Because the tech doesn’t work and isn’t capable of working. Every additional dollar you spend has a massively negative expected return. Chasing “make up your losses” on a project that’s dead in the water is virtually never a valid strategy.