The AIkea Effect
This is Not about AI
I’ve avoided writing about AI, because I’m somewhat tired of it surfacing at the turn of almost every scroll, click and conference, often in discourses that are frankly not very interesting, enlightening and even less fun to read.
There are exceptions, of course, on both sides of what sometimes seems like a chasmic divide.
But, this post is not quite about AI. It’s more a reflection on our very own, very human shortsightedness and the way it stubbornly keeps surfacing in spite of all our futuristic aspirations.
Marketing, Bias, and DIY
Today, I stumbled upon this article by 404 Media: The Software Engineers Paid to Fix Vibe Coded Messes, and after some yes-but-no-but-yes, I gave into my curiosity and read it.
After I finished, I thought: the way these Vive Coding Fixers described the relationship that their clients entertained with their work sounded like a song I’d heard before.
Yes! The Ikea Effect, a form of cognitive bias that results in people overvaluing the results of their own labour, even if it may be poorly built.
Faire du Neuf avec du Vieux 🧼
It turns out, these are very old marketing techniques.
In spite of the technological gadgets we continue to accumulate (in software or hardware form), we don’t seem to change our behaviours much. On the contrary, we become fixated by fancy new tools that amplify our tendency to overestimate our self assessments, and even worse, limit our capacity to recognize our blind spots and areas where we could make improvements.
Moreover, I cannot help but think about other times in history where people flocked to new and shiny discoveries to the point of peppering everything with a touch of the new. Why not a timepiece hand painted by the Radium Girls ? or a quick escapade to Atomic City ? Do I really want to delve into social or environmental impacts ?
No, I digress. The topic was skip-loads of plywood furniture that rarely lasts more than a couple of house moves but whose ease of use and DIY assemblage has left its mark on forests and generations past, and possibly to come (including me, yes, I’m not immune to this 🛠️).
Power Dynamics and Power Tools
Can we blame the technology itself ? I don’t think so. I believe our recurring careless approach to shiny new things results from a mix of the dynamics of economic power (or lack thereof), influence and societal pressure, coupled with an impulse to cater to our own short-sighted interests at the expense of the abstract “other” (people, land, generations to come, etc).
When it comes down to my own impulses, making choices regarding tech are not always easy. I do want to learn more about machine learning and the possibilities it offers, and have friends and colleagues who have a thoughtful approach to the use of these tools. Powerful tools, yes, but they are just tools. My gut keeps telling me that we need to understand what we are doing if and when use them. And ask ourselves when do we really need them, if we need them at all.
Reuse, Recycle
Whatever the results of this latest tech cycle may be, the online hype machine seems to have found the perfect way to give vintage marketing tricks a new lease of vibe. Groovy.
Maybe we should put more effort into recycling teachings from our past mistakes too.
Anyway, enough dooming for one post.
I have a second-hand bedside table to lovingly restore.
🤖 I’m slightly allergic to the term “AI”, here under quotes as a precaution, unleashed from them in the text to ease readability
🧼 French expression that roughly translates as: making new things with old ones
🛠️ Talking about Ikea furniture. I don’t code using vibes, I prefer to understand the code I write, or at least try
Resources
While this post is a reflection about how we make human choices, questions surrounding AI adoption are a pressing issue for many at the moment. Here are two readings that have encouraged me to think more thoroughly about the topic: