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Shopify CEO Shows Imitative AI About Ideology Not Business [1]

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Date: 2025-04-10

Short one today as life is intervening (nothing wrong, just busy), but I did want to highlight another example of imitative AI as ideology instead of a business decision.

The CEO of Shopify, an all-around lovely fellow working to end cancer research in a country not even his own, has now instructed all of his employees that that must use imitative AI, they will be judged on how much they use it, and they cannot hire people until they prove that the job cannot be done by imitative AI. This is insane, possibly business killing level insane.

First, imitative AI cannot do anyone’s job right now. Given the hallucination problem, every output must be checked by experts to ensure that the output is useable. You cannot leave it to do work by itself, because it then does things like lie about the laws in New York City or give you tax advice that will get you audited. It degrades the quality of code and introduces security flaws — something that a shopping cart system like Shopify should be keen to eliminate. These things need to be babysat as if they were a Godzilla sized toddler who hasn’t had their nap yet.

Second, I am perfectly willing to believe that some people somewhere have integrated some imitative AI beneficially into their workflows, (I am not willing to believe that there is enough demand for these small advances to prop up the huge amounts of money that are required to make these viable commercial products, but that is another discussion), perhaps by summarizing stupid emails from their CEO. But those people found those instances by working through their own processes, not because they were told they had to use it in a certain way. Forcing people to use a tool not fit for their work is, bluntly, stupid. But it is an ideological stupid, driven by someone who does not do work.

I have spoken about this before, but a lot of the push for imitative AI is because tech leaders hate their workers. They hate that they require the talents of these workers in order to make money and they hate that their workers occasionally take their vague promises to better the world seriously. It gets in the way of making more even more money than the obscene amounts they already have. And nothing should get in the way of that. The Shopify CEO so wants to live in a world where he doesn’t have to pay workers for their talents that he is going to risk ruining his company to prove it can exist.

Here is what is going to happen to Shopify if this is actually enforced. First, a lot of people are going to leave. The combination of overwork brought on my under-hiring and the mandate to use tools that often make your work harder not easier is going to make working there already more miserable than it likely is. That is going to push people to leave, starting with usually the best people as they would have an easier time leaving and finding a job. Next, the CEO is going to force a lot of people to waste a lot of time and money. If they really do check on usage, a lot of people are going to “use” the tools, and thus Shopify is going to spend money on, and then do the work the way they would have regardless as they don’t have the time or the incentive to babysit the bullshit machine. Really dishonest and clever people will write scripts to constantly use the things while they do the real work in the background. So, in addition to making people’s output worse, and decreasing their work satisfaction, this mandate will inoculate a culture of lying to leadership. I am sure that wouldn’t be detrimental in any fashion.

I might start looking into Shopify alternatives if I had an online shop.

The CEO of Shopify is not making a business decision. He is making an ideological driven choice. He is trying to force the world to bend to his preconceived notion of how it should be rather than how it is. He can no more make imitative AI an effective replacement for workers any more than Canute could hold back the rising of the tide (whose says STEM people are culturally illiterate). In his mind, he is Lord Business, and all the Legos shall bow to him. He is about to find out, I think, that there isn’t enough glue in the world to hold together his delusions.

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