I came across a LinkedIn post the other day that described \u201chypegineering,\u201d which the poster explained refers to the moment when AI \u201cmarketing becomes more innovative than the technology itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
That post came from Ralph Aboujaoude Diaz, the global head of GRC for British consumer services company Haleon. Until last year, Diaz worked in operations cybersecurity for consumer goods giant Philip Morris.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his post, Diaz added that \u201cside effects may include believing mediocre tech is revolutionary, confusing hype with progress, buying solutions to problems you don\u2019t have and defending it like your job depends on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As amusing as that might seem, the problem is frighteningly real. The sad truth is that enterprise IT executives are partly \u2014 perhaps mostly \u2014 to blame for the current hype around AI.<\/p>\n
For many decades, senior IT leaders (pre-dating when it was called MIS) were the technology hype-deflators with razor-shape BS detection skills. That level of skepticism was needed. Tech vendors have always exaggerated and left out critical context when they weren\u2019t outright lying about their products.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Enterprises trusted the IT gate-keepers to ferret out reality from the smoke and mirrors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there was a critical difference back then: senior management (especially CEOs, CFOs and board members) didn\u2019t pay much attention to tech. They wanted the benefits, but they left the details to IT management to sort things out. With senior managers, benign neglect can be an incredibly good thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As much as we might all think that we want our bosses to really care about our efforts, be careful what you wish for. (For Dilbert fans, think of the pointy-haired boss; a boss who has strong beliefs but no understanding of technology is a nightmare.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alas, that is the situation many enterprises find themselves in today. IT management fully understands the level of absurd hype coming from a multitude of AI players. But unlike years and technologies past (RFID? NFC? Biometrics?), deflating hype balloons is easier when it\u2019s comes solely from vendors. When senior managers start spouting this garbage, IT\u2019s hype-deflation ability morphs into contradicting the very people at the top of their own corporate food chain.<\/p>\n
That forces IT leaders who want to stay gainfully employed to do a lot of what used to be called lying. \u201cWell, boss, yes these agentic systems have guardrails that will block destruction,\u201d the lie begins, \u201cbut we can\u2019t anticipate what any user or attacker might say in a prompt.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s far more corporate acceptable than the actual truth: \u201cBoss, a guardrail that an agent can disregard isn\u2019t a guardrail. It\u2019s more of a mild suggestion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Or IT could say, \u201cWell, yes, boss, autonomous agents could exponentially increase efficiency \u2014 as long as you\u2019re OK with the risk that they might send our internal data to the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the sake of the company, tech leaders and decision-makers need to reassert themselves and perform serious reality checks on all AI efforts. But this is more fraught than merely contradicting a top boss. IT\u00a0 could be seen as embarrassing that top boss by pretty much proving that they were either naive or ignorant enough to be conned by the hype.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Telling them they\u2019re wrong seems nicer than calling them stupid. And yet, someone in IT has to find a politically palatable way to do both.\u00a0<\/p>\n