https://theaidownside.com/ A blog documenting the downsides, failures, dark patterns, pricing changes, hallucinations and anti-user behaviour of AI models and the companies behind them. Sarcastic, factual, anti-hype, pro-consumer. en-GB Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:49:14 +0000 The AI Downside static generator https://theaidownside.com/posts/ai-coding-assistants-and-the-myth-of-the-10x-developer.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/ai-coding-assistants-and-the-myth-of-the-10x-developer.html Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Priya Chandra AI Coding AI coding tools are useful and here to stay. That is not the same as the tenfold productivity revolution being sold on the pricing page. https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-ai-search-is-making-google-worse.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-ai-search-is-making-google-worse.html Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Tom Hollis AI Search AI Overviews were meant to save you a click. Increasingly they cost you one, plus the time spent working out whether the summary is true. https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-every-ai-wants-your-data.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-every-ai-wants-your-data.html Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Eleanor Vance Privacy Your conversations, files and prompts are the raw material for the next model. Whether you knew you were donating them is a matter of default settings. https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-death-of-the-open-web-through-ai-overviews.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-death-of-the-open-web-through-ai-overviews.html Tue, 14 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Miles Ashworth AI Search AI answers are built from pages that depend on visits to survive. The maths of that arrangement does not close. https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-subscription-fatigue-of-modern-ai.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-subscription-fatigue-of-modern-ai.html Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Miles Ashworth Pricing The AI industry has quietly rebuilt the cable bundle, one twenty-pound-a-month chatbot at a time. https://theaidownside.com/posts/claudes-rate-limits-are-still-confusing.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/claudes-rate-limits-are-still-confusing.html Wed, 24 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Priya Chandra Rate Limits The model is excellent. Working out how much of it you are allowed to use, and when you will be cut off, remains a genuine mystery to paying customers. https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-hidden-cost-of-ai-tokens.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-hidden-cost-of-ai-tokens.html Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Priya Chandra Pricing Token pricing looks transparent — a price per million, right there on the page. Predicting your actual bill from it is another matter entirely. https://theaidownside.com/posts/chatgpts-ui-changes-too-often.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/chatgpts-ui-changes-too-often.html Tue, 02 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Tom Hollis ChatGPT Constant redesigns are sold as improvement. For the people using the thing every day, they mostly tax the one thing software is supposed to build: familiarity. https://theaidownside.com/posts/ai-companies-keep-reinventing-search.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/ai-companies-keep-reinventing-search.html Tue, 19 May 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Miles Ashworth AI Search The AI industry has decided search is broken and it will fix it. In the process it keeps rebuilding search's oldest problems from scratch. https://theaidownside.com/posts/ai-hallucinations-are-still-not-solved.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/ai-hallucinations-are-still-not-solved.html Tue, 05 May 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Miles Ashworth Hallucinations Hallucination is not a bug being ironed out. It is a property of how these systems work, and pretending otherwise is how people get hurt. https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-every-ai-startup-looks-the-same.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-every-ai-startup-looks-the-same.html Tue, 21 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Tom Hollis AI Slop When a thousand companies build the same wrapper around the same three models, they converge on the same everything — including the same fragility. https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-ai-benchmarks-mean-less-than-you-think.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-ai-benchmarks-mean-less-than-you-think.html Wed, 08 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Priya Chandra LLMs Benchmark scores are the industry's favourite number and one of its least honest. Here is why the leaderboard keeps lying to you. https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-problem-with-ai-memory.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-problem-with-ai-memory.html Tue, 24 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Eleanor Vance Privacy Persistent memory makes chatbots feel personal. It also builds a quiet, growing dossier you did not quite agree to and cannot easily see. https://theaidownside.com/posts/when-ai-refuses-perfectly-normal-requests.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/when-ai-refuses-perfectly-normal-requests.html Tue, 10 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Miles Ashworth Censorship Over-cautious refusals are the tax responsible users pay for the vendor's risk management. Increasingly the tax is levied on requests that were never risky. https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-ai-product-launches-feel-identical.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/why-ai-product-launches-feel-identical.html Tue, 24 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Tom Hollis AI Slop AI launches have hardened into a genre with fixed conventions. Once you can see the template, you cannot unsee it. https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-race-to-replace-human-support-with-bots.html https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-race-to-replace-human-support-with-bots.html Tue, 10 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Eleanor Vance AI Slop AI support is sold as faster help for customers. Mostly it is cheaper deflection for companies, with the escape hatch quietly welded shut.