Dazzle AI CEO Marissa Mayer recently became the latest tech CEO to face criticism over seemingly out-of-touch comments extolling the usefulness of AI. In Mayer’s case, that involved asking an AI tool for help with a school-assigned description of her daughter. For OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, that’s included suggesting that parents create personalized podcasts for their kids’ drive to school and also declaring that he could not imagine parenting without ChatGPT.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has even suggested that it will become increasingly acceptable to meet your social and romantic needs through AI. This all led TechCrunch’s Amanda Silberling to wonder if AI executives are simply too out-of-touch to build products for normal people — a crucial question with Anthropic set to go public just as Wall Street begins losing its appetite for heavy AI spending. On the latest episode of the Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I chatted with Amanda about why industry leaders can sometimes seem so tone deaf.
Kirsten wondered if this is more of a marketing problem or a product problem. Amanda’s answer: “A little bit of both.” She also argued that the tech industry is increasingly pushing a future “where basic human interaction gets more and more optimized out of actually occurring,” adding, “And call me old school, but I think that humans being able to talk to each other is probably a net positive for society.” Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. Anthony Ha: There’s a lot of societal skepticism about AI, this feeling that the people running these companies don’t have our best interests at heart, that they’re out of touch.
And so, you would just think, “Maybe don’t make statements like that,” because of course, people are going to see them very skeptically. I think [CEOs] are trying to walk this delicate balance. On the one hand, there’s a tremendous financial incentive for them to make the case that you should use this technology in every aspect of your lives.
But when you make that case, it actually [doesn’t paint] a very appealing picture. In some cases, it’s downright dystopian. Kirsten Korosec: Anthony, if they took your advice, we would have nothing to talk about on this show.
But I will say this: There’s this whole idea of ChatGPT and other AI tools making your life easier when it comes to personal relationships. And in many of these cases, it just seems to overcomplicate what would be, like, observing your child. That might be hard for some people, the people who are building these products, and it doesn’t necessarily relate to everyone else out there in the world.
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