Welcome
to The AI Failure Handbook - the only AI book you probably shouldn't forward
to your CEO (unless you enjoy watching senior leaders squirm).
While the rest of the industry is busy publishing the same glossy liturgy
"10 Steps to AI Success", "The Responsible AI Framework",
"How We Deployed Generative AI and Saved Millions" (complete with
suspiciously precise numbers and suspiciously triumphant slide decks) I
decided to do the opposite on purpose.
Instead of another earnest guide to winning, this handbook lovingly
catalogues the precise, repeatable, almost beautiful recipes that keep 80-95%
of AI initiatives firmly in the "expensive PowerPoint and quiet
regret" club. With dark humour, unflinching honesty, and a thoughtfully
provocative approach, it shows you exactly how most organisations ensure
their multimillion-dollar transformations die quietly in production, often
while everyone involved insists they're "doing AI"
brilliantly.
You'll discover:
Just Do AI(TM) and never ask
"Why?" because assumptions are faster, far less career-limiting,
and 95% of pilots will nod in enthusiastic agreement anyway.
Governance as performance art how
to strangle innovation with 47 overlapping approval layers while solemnly
calling it "Responsible AI".
Polish the symptoms, preserve the
issue why fixing the obvious itches feels so much more productive than ever
touching the gory root causes underneath.
The Technology first strategy the
surest way to keep AI safely away from messy things like customers, revenue,
and actual value.
The Co-Head Hydra because nothing
screams "speed of AI" like requiring consensus from six busy people
before lunch.
Promise the moon, deliver the
PowerPoint how to overhype AI to the board until credibility dies a quiet
death in production.
Measure everything except what
matters ROC curves, tokens per second, and other beautiful vanity metrics
that let you look extremely busy while value quietly evaporates.
And the pièce de résistance
turning your entire AI "transformation" into a quietly
authoritarian nightmare while still calling it "people, culture, and
change".
Inspired by the 1944 OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual, this is reverse
psychology with a straight face. It is not another triumphant case study. It
is not another framework. It is a satirical mirror held up to every
executive, transformation lead, data scientist, governance committee member,
and procurement officer who has ever watched multimillion-dollar dreams
quietly die in production while updating the roadmap and scheduling another
alignment sync.
Read it. Laugh (because if you can't laugh at corporate AI theatre, you
will cry). Wince (because some of it will feel uncomfortably, painfully
familiar). And if the humour lands just right, perhaps quietly rethink one or
two things before the next budget cycle.
A work of satire by Dr. David R. Hardoon. Any resemblance to actual
organisations, transformations, governance committees, or CxOs is entirely
coincidental and without merit. Printed in irony.
Perfect for anyone tired of the hype who can still appreciate a good dose
of ironic truth and a quiet, subversive cheat code for those brave enough to
use it. |
