AI: Well, Maybe, Er, Not Exactly Yet
January 21, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I don’t spend much time with 20 somethings if I can help it. I know that if I use a term like “fancy dancing”, I get a glazed look. Right, 6-7? But how about the word “crawfish.” If you think this is something one eats in a paella at a restaurant in Valencia, you will want to know that my use of the word means “retreat from a previous commitment. When a corporate executive crawfishes, that estimable profession wants to get the heck away from one’s original position. Thus, when a big time big tech outfit’s leadership says, “Well, uh, yeah, AI is… well, you know, guess what? That is the sound of a crawfisher.
Executives are backing away from the AI robot. Thanks, Venice.ai. Not what I wanted but good enough, just like AI, right?
Okay, consider this statement from the Irish Times:
“So the [intellectual property] of any application or any firm is, how do you use all these models with context engineering or your data? As long as firms can answer that question, they’re gonna be getting ahead.”
Is this statement:
[a] A crystal clear explanation about how to make progress with AI
[b] A statement from a big time management consultant who uses classy words like “gonna”
[c] Crawfishing?
Let’s come at this from a different angle. Here’s a shameless content marketing article from Forbes. (Malcolm, I know you are spinning in heaven, but Forbes is different now.) “Why AI Needs a Strategy Before It Needs a Tool” states:
Most executives bought AI tools with zero strategic intention. No outcomes defined. No KPIs. No ownership. No activation plan. That is why AI adoption stalled…. It was always a strategy issue.
This does not seem to be crawfishing. The author is pointing out that smart software has stumbled trying to catch a cangrejos de río and is in danger of drowning in a stream in Spain, the strategy will drown the person, not the water.
And one more vector. This one is from the boo birds at the Guardian. “Artificial Intelligence Research Has a Slop Problem, Academics Say: ‘It’s a Mess’” points out:
it is almost impossible to know what’s actually going on in AI – for journalists, the public, and even experts in the field
With my reference to the Procambarus clarkii, what’s the point. The old AI razzmatazz seems to be something folks want to back away from. Reality bites hard. And what about those data centers that could endanger crawfish in some parts of the US of A. Rest easy, little critters, those may lack the power to light up the little blue, red, and green LEDs.
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2026
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