Buzzy AI Startup for Generating 3D Models Used Cheap Human Labor
www.404media.co
Kaedim's founder was recently in a Forbes 30 Under 30 list for the company's 2D to 3D image conversion. In some cases artists produced the work wholecloth, one source said.

404media continues to do devastatingly good tech journalism

What Kaedim’s artificial intelligence produced was of such low quality that at one point in time “it would just be an unrecognizable blob or something instead of a tree for example,” one source familiar with its process said. 404 Media granted multiple sources in this article anonymity to avoid retaliation.

this is fucking amazing. the company tries to hide it as a QA check, but they’re really just paying 3d modelers $1-$4 a pop to churn out models in 15 minutes while they pretend the work’s being done by an AI, and now I’m wondering what other AI startups have also discovered this shitty dishonest growth hack

  • SteveEnglish
    13•10 months ago

    So for the time being, we’re primarily targeting enterprise customers that have a significant need for Kaedim’s large-scale production capabilities.

    Would it be fair to say that this is a strong indicator for snake oil tech?

    Enterprise gives the buyer / user separation advantage. They sell it in to the people who like to hear words like “productivity boost” etc who then dump it on their employees who have to deal with it and pretend it works

    • @selfOPAEnglish
      11•10 months ago

      “snake oil you’re forcing your employees to use” is a fairly eloquent summary of the enterprise software space as a whole

      • SteveEnglish
        5•10 months ago

        Working in UX on B2B SaaS in a startup hunting for their first clients really does open your eyes to the theatre of catering to a “user”.

        Serverless lambda react typescript client-side rendering soup that would make the average corporate dell optiplex meltdown before you’ve finished typing the url

        • @selfOPAEnglish
          6•10 months ago

          oh god I’m having flashbacks to an extremely similar trauma

          • SteveEnglish
            5•10 months ago

            I should put content warnings on this stuff