Probably all of us have had some interactions with Artificial Intelligence (AI) at this point. Either providing more advanced search results, creating presentations or writing papers, automating manual processes, or even having a discussion on the phone (yes, there are many sales and marketing tools available). Also, you have probably seen an increase of advertising where the product is using AI. Even in the tax preparation services, we have seen ads where the AI will prepare the tax returns (I am extremely skeptical relying the whole process on AI at this point).

However, as you might have experienced, it seems that there is no one at the wheel resulting in a poor or undesired outcome (which might be caused by our erroneous query in the AI system that reminds me the old saying “garbage in, garbage out”).

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is going after AI companies that overpromised and underdelivered, in some cases using deceptive claims as you can read more details in the link below.

Some of these companies had different AI tools that did not live to the hype, like Donotpay had a AI lawyer or robot attorney to get you out of trouble or Ascend Ecom claimed using AI to invest risk free, among others.

The FTC reminds businesses and consumers to follow legal common sense and provides the following takeaways:

“…First, if you’re looking for AI-based tools to use in your business:

  • Be skeptical of AI-related products that claim they can fully replace a qualified human professional… 
  • Don’t take shortcuts on reviews… 

…Second, if you’re tempted to mention AI in ads to boost sales:

  • Don’t say you use AI tools if you don’t… 
  • A lie in robot’s clothing is still a lie: the same old advertising principles apply…“

Our recommendation is to triple check any AI products/services and make sure there is still someone in charge and available for any questions or feedback, especially for professional services like health, education, finance, tax preparation and others. Human relationships still matters to us.

Link FTC – Operation AI Comply: continuing the crackdown on overpromises and AI-related lies