Robot Rudolph: When AI Goes Awry

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Artificial Intelligence  

“Santa just got run over by a robot!”

“What?!?”

“Santa just got run over by a robot!”

“Yes, yes, I heard, I mean, what?!?”

“Yep, robot Rudolph. And he’s now taken off with the sleigh. Robot Rudolph I mean, not Santa.”

With that, Santa’s sleigh appeared heading straight for the North Pole base of Santa’s operations. To the casual observer, it may have appeared as though the sleigh was performing barrel rolls. That was because the sleigh was, in fact, performing barrel rolls.

And this was my welcome on my annual trip to Santa, so that I can report back to the good people of ProjectManagement.com on how Christmas preparations are proceeding this year. My first impressions. Well, to be honest, not great. I’ve seen worse projects, but not many.

I knocked on Santa’s door and he let me in, looking slightly shaken up—I guess that being run over by robot Rudolph will do that.

Still, he sat me down with almost as much “ho, ho, ho” as usual, and we started the usual game of “Try some of Mrs. Claus’ famous fruitcake” / “No, I’m full, I ate really well on the flight, but thank you, it looks delicious.” (As an aside, Mrs. Claus is a lovely lady, but she can’t bake. That fruitcake defies polite description.)

I asked …

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