Summary
MIT Technology Review piece (2018) documenting companies that explicitly sell “AI” products powered primarily or entirely by human labor. Specific examples: companies that sold AI customer service chat that was actually humans; “AI-powered” document review that used paralegal contractors; AI scheduling assistants depending on human operators. Predates the current AI boom but establishes that “AI-washing” — marketing human labor as automation — is a systemic commercial strategy, not occasional deception.
Key Points
- Companies explicitly market human-labor-powered products as “AI” software
- Pattern identified as early as 2018 — “AI-washing” as commercial strategy predates the ChatGPT era
- Motivations: AI products attract higher valuations, more investment, premium pricing
- The deception operates at multiple levels: investor deck (AI company), customer pitch (AI product), actual product (humans)
- MIT Tech Review called this “fake AI software” explicitly in the headline — unusual directness for 2018
Newsletter Angles
- 2018 is the watermark: By 2018, MIT Tech Review was already calling out “fake AI software” by name. The Mechanical Turk Pattern was documented as a systemic commercial strategy eight years before the current AI boom. This isn’t new; it scaled.
- Valuation incentive: The commercial logic is clear — “AI company” valuations are 5-10x “services company” valuations for the same underlying business. Human labor presented as AI unlocks investor funding, customer premium, and acquisition multiples. The incentive to deceive is structural.
Entities Mentioned
- Mechanical Turk Pattern — the 2018 systemic documentation of what was already an established practice
Concepts Mentioned
- Mechanical Turk Pattern — established as commercial strategy pre-ChatGPT era
Notes
Published 2018 — valuable as historical documentation showing the Mechanical Turk Pattern predates the current AI investment cycle. Pairs well with The Humans Hiding Behind the Chatbots (Bloomberg, 2016) to establish a pre-ChatGPT baseline for the practice.