AI still doesn't work very well, businesses are faking it, and a reckoning is coming (The Register, 3/17)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/17/ai_businesses_faking_it_reckoning_coming_codestrap/

Long article without a paywall that you should read in its entirety.

To underscore the consequences of not having that kind of data, Smiley pointed to a recent attempt to rewrite SQLite in Rust using AI.

"It passed all the unit tests, the shape of the code looks right," he said. It's 3.7x more lines of code that performs 2,000 times worse than the actual SQLite. Two thousand times worse for a database is a non-viable product. It's a dumpster fire. Throw it away. All that money you spent on it is worthless."

-snip-

"Insurance underwriters are seriously trying now to remove coverage in policies where AI is applied and there's no clear chain of responsibility," said Smiley. "So now let's imagine you're the big four and you do get sued and you are having pricing pressure applied, the market's outpacing your ability to adapt, and now your underwriters are telling you, 'oh by the way we're not going to cover you.'"

-snip-

Insurers, he said, are already lobbying state-level insurance regulators to win a carve-out in business insurance liability policies so they are not obligated to cover AI-related workflows. "That kills the whole system," Deeks said.

-snip-

I thought what the article said about insurers not wanting to have to cover business use of AI was really interesting.

[NJCher]

1. It's only logical

My neighbor is an actuary. You know the expression “think like a lawyer”? There should be one for actuaries, too, i.e., think like an actuary. Being in that business affects one’s overall outlook and mode of operation.

There is no way in hell the insurance industry is going to underwrite the effects of a flawed technology like AI.

The next time I talk to my neighbor, I am going to ask him about this specifically.

[highplainsdem]

4. Please let us know what he says about this.

[BadgerKid]

2. There's going to be a lot of "blame it on AI" coming.

Health and auto insurance coverage (avoid payouts). Legal defense. Just to name a few.

[highplainsdem]

5. GenAI is undermining our society in countless ways.

[NJCher]

3. Another point

It’s one thing to read about how bad this technology is, and it’s quite another to experience it.

I am writing a brief history about a particular industry that was prominent in my town, but it’s not generally recognized. It is overshadowed by other people/events at the time, such as… Well, Thomas Edison.

In examining the key players in this other industry, a New York Times obituary told me a particular person had one son and two daughters. AI had access to this obituary. After AI was through with assembling his history, however, he had:

– – One daughter only, who went to France, and came back to live with him in the latter third of his life. Not even remotely possible, as there were other articles, documenting her presence in France at that time.

– – One son, who was a major general, just like his father. However, the New York Times obituary did not mention his father being a major general. Huh?

These are only two examples of conflicts and contradictions. There were many more. I felt like.AI took history and put it in a blender.

[highplainsdem]

6. Wow.

I felt like.AI took history and put it in a blender.

That's basically what it does, with the world's knowledge and culture.

It amazes me that anyone's impressed by tech so unreliable that the AI companies have to add caveats that their flawed AI makes mistakes, so users have to check its results.

Which people who are AI-dazzled and/or lazy simply won't do.

[NJCher]

7. the premise is dubious

from day one I would have rejected this idea as worthy of further development.

It pays no attention whatsoever as to how ideas and thinking evolve. This is perfectly apparent to any writing teacher, but maybe not to everyone.

[highplainsdem]

8. GenAI should never have been released, period. It's inherently unreliable and it was a fantasy that

they could ever get rid of the hallucinations.

Plus there's that giant problem with the companies having stolen the world's intellectual property.

They went ahead and promoted it anyway - out of greed, out of fear of losing market share to other companies, and out of a delusional hope that if they just kept stealing more IP and building more data centers, their flawed AI would somehow, someday, turn into superintelligent AI that would be their fairy godrobot and reward them with immortality and godlike powers.