“How does such unprofessional AI get the job?” by KatjaGrace

In the sequence of variously wild AI developments in the last decade, a thing that was especially surprising to me was the advent of big esteemed companies like Microsoft releasing products like Sydney. It's like how you can believe a fictional world has dragons, but it strains credibility if characters start being totally indifferent to social status apropos of nothing. I can warily accept that boxes of wires can now talk like humans. But that huge official companies now proudly present products that are like crazy confused ladies that do a lot of tasks for you, many accurately, but also try to steal you from your spouse (or these days encourage you to kill yourself or believe in new spiritualities), feels like a scene written by someone with poor familiarity with the character of companies. But it's actually written in reality, so what don’t I understand? I guess just that if something is hypey and perceived to be in-future-profitable enough, normal standards of professionalism must fall to that? I phoned CVS, hoping to move an antibiotic prescription to a different pharmacy address so I could pick it up before leaving on a flight. I was answered by an [...] --- First published: June 24th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6RZvGd6RfbkLDnTfu/how-does-such-unprofessional-ai-get-the-job --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.