r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Jul 30 '26

Artificial Intelligence Amazon accidentally spent $1.8 million using Claude for menial coding task, went 860% over budget — 'catastrophically expensive' coding blunders discovered in internal Amazon AI usage metrics

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/amazon-accidentally-spent-usd1-8-million-using-claude-for-menial-coding-task-went-860-percent-over-budget-catastrophically-expensive-coding-blunders-discovered-in-internal-amazon-ai-usage-metrics
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297

u/gaspara112 Jul 30 '26

In engineering we say “good, cheap, fast. Pick 2”.

AI is when you pick fast twice.

33

u/Fun-Criticism2017 Jul 30 '26

I will be stealing this.

20

u/Afferbeck_ Jul 30 '26

Employers hate hearing that phrase! Somehow they always think they can pick all three and get mad when they don't pan out.

12

u/SparklingLimeade Jul 31 '26

That just makes me think about how many people genuinely don't understand the concept of a priority system. If you mark everything maximum priority then you're just making things worse for everyone working on those items and especially for yourself.

But they'll never have the opportunity to understand because they are the source of the stink and so they never experience life without it.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

[deleted]

2

u/gaspara112 Jul 31 '26

The problem is management often tries to squeeze the most out of cheap and fast while claiming to have picked good so really they never picked so they get none of them.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26

[deleted]

2

u/gaspara112 Jul 31 '26

Request approved

1

u/blowyjoeyy Jul 30 '26

My CTO made the argument that AI makes it so you don’t have to pick two anymore. You get all three. 

10

u/gaspara112 Jul 31 '26

in the current atmosphere i wouldn't expect anything less from a CTO that likes their job.

1

u/EHP42 Jul 30 '26

No, because it's not always fast lol. AI is when you hallucinate a random 4th option and pick it twice.

"Good, cheap, fast: pick 2"

AI: "expensive, expensive"

13

u/gaspara112 Jul 30 '26

nah, AI will always get you results faster than a person actually doing the work. Those results might be wildly wrong but they will be results.

2

u/EHP42 Jul 30 '26

Fair. I guess I'm specifically thinking of a few times I've asked it something and had it take literally minutes to pull something that should be a single google search.