Jersey Mike’s IPO illustrates how bad the AI hype has become

Jersey Mike’s 的 IPO 揭示了 AI 炒作已经到了何种荒谬的地步

I can’t tell the exact tipping point from realistic excitement over a new technology, to hype, to aww-come-on — but I’m pretty sure when a sandwich shop with Danny DeVito as its public face talks about AI in its IPO documents, we must be getting close. 我无法准确判断从对新技术的理性兴奋，到盲目炒作，再到令人无语的“够了没”之间确切的临界点在哪里——但我敢肯定，当一家以丹尼·德维托（Danny DeVito）为代言人的三明治店开始在 IPO 文件中大谈 AI 时，我们离那个临界点已经不远了。

So it is with Jersey Mike’s. Because of investor thirst for all things AI these days, I understand why tech companies feel the need to sprinkle AI dust all over their pitches. This is as true for non-AI startups raising venture capital as it is for Bending Spoons’ public debut, a company in the business of buying aging, “not-AI” tech companies to rehabilitate. Jersey Mike’s 就是如此。鉴于如今投资者对 AI 相关的一切事物趋之若鹜，我理解为什么科技公司觉得有必要在他们的推介材料中撒上“AI 调料”。无论是寻求风险投资的非 AI 初创公司，还是准备上市的 Bending Spoons（一家专门收购并重组老旧“非 AI”科技公司的企业），情况皆是如此。

Just for kicks, I took a look at Jersey Mike’s IPO documents to see how far this compulsion may go. Surely a sandwich shop would have no need to mention AI in its S-1. But lo and behold! The term artificial intelligence and its acronym “AI” were mentioned 22 times. 出于好奇，我翻阅了 Jersey Mike’s 的 IPO 文件，想看看这种强迫症能到什么程度。按理说，一家三明治店根本没必要在 S-1 招股书中提及 AI。但你猜怎么着？“人工智能”及其缩写“AI”竟然出现了 22 次。

In this case, the company can’t claim to be selling AI software. It sells submarine sandwiches. AI products are what investors are really hungering for (terrible pun intended). Still, it found a way to mention AI in its investor-risk warnings. That may be even more funny. 在这种情况下，该公司显然无法声称自己在销售 AI 软件，它卖的是潜艇三明治。投资者真正渴望的是 AI 产品（请原谅这个糟糕的双关语）。尽管如此，它还是在投资者风险提示中找到了提及 AI 的方式。这或许更加滑稽。

It doesn’t explain what it’s using AI for that could be dangerous to investors, beyond a hand-wave of a phrase, “We are beginning to use AI Technologies in our business.” In all fairness, as a company that operates franchisees, it does rely on software (mentioned 52 times) and data (112 mentions), as all businesses do. 除了用一句“我们正开始在业务中使用 AI 技术”来敷衍了事外，它并没有解释究竟是在用 AI 做什么可能会危及投资者的事情。平心而论，作为一家运营加盟店的公司，它确实像所有企业一样依赖软件（文中提及 52 次）和数据（提及 112 次）。

Its AI risk warning was boilerplate copy, perhaps even necessary, as such disasters have already happened to other food businesses, like the half-baked AI inventory tool that Starbucks rolled out, which couldn’t count and was recently scrapped. 它的 AI 风险提示属于套话，甚至可能是必要的，因为其他餐饮企业已经发生过此类灾难——比如星巴克推出的那个半吊子 AI 库存工具，因为它连数都数不清，最近已被废弃。

Still, I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that the risk of an AI disaster for a company that produces real-life sandwiches, not AI slop, is about the same as, say, a franchise shop getting hit by lightning. That actually happened, by the way, to a shop in Texas in 2021. Yet weather was only mentioned five times in the S-1. And lightning? Not once. 不过，我还是想大胆预测一下：对于一家生产实实在在的三明治而非 AI 垃圾内容的公司来说，发生 AI 灾难的风险，大概和一家加盟店被闪电击中差不多。顺便提一下，2021 年德克萨斯州确实有一家店被闪电击中过。然而，S-1 文件中只提到了 5 次“天气”，至于“闪电”？一次都没提。