Something for the weekend - why this summer's 'silly season' is all about dumb AI and its over-reaching CEOs

August is often called "the silly season" by media pundits – the month when people are on summer vacation, business events are rare, and news outlets turn to absurd and entertaining stories to fill their pages in a traditionally quiet period.

But August is also proving just how silly, misguided, and sometimes dangerous our overreliance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become. To prove it, here is a seasonal selection of stories – though each provides valuable lessons about our obsession with this technology, and its CEOs.

First up is this sorry tale from the US West Coast. Earlier this week, a spokesperson for Silicon Valley Robotics (SVR) – the Oakland-based organization for California's robotics cluster – tweeted:

LOL-ish. I just had people show up for an all-day robotics event at [venue] that ChatGPT had totally fabricated, complete with hours and our address.

That's right, the world's most popular chatbot had hallucinated ...