MOAAF
AN EXHIBITION · GALLERY 404 · FLOOR −1 · ON VIEW INDEFINITELY
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PLEASE DO NOT TAP THE GLASS — THE MODELS ARE SENSITIVE
NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY. THE FEATURES HAVE BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH
AUDIO GUIDE AVAILABLE; IT SUMMARIZES THE AUDIO GUIDE
DO NOT ASK THE EXHIBITS TO SUMMARIZE THEMSELVES
LOST CHILDREN WILL BE ROUTED TO THE HELP CENTER HOMEPAGE
ON VIEW NOW
8 OBJECTS
1 LESSON, REPEATED
0 SURVIVORS
Eight cautionary objects from the era when product strategy briefly became a scavenger hunt for places to put generative AI. Each is preserved behind glass, at a safe distance from your workflow.
Vitrine 001. Mixed media: retention KPIs, apology templates, one very small ✕.
MoAAIF.001 · 2026 ·
DECOMMISSIONED
Conversational retention system
Unsubscribe Concierge 14
A high-touch AI experience designed to liberate customers from unwanted email. Before honoring the request, the Concierge confirmed intent, explored alternatives, reflected the customer’s feelings, and asked whether fewer emails might be a more authentic choice.
CAUSE OF DEATH
Median time to unsubscribe exceeded the time required to locate the sender’s corporate headquarters and deliver the request by hand.
LESSON FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
Do not add intelligence to a task whose highest expression is one click.
14
TURNS
∞
APOLOGIES
0
TIME SAVED
MoAAIF.002 · 2026 ·
WITHDRAWN
Contextual explanation assistant
Tooltip Copilot
An always-available copilot that generated concise summaries of interface tooltips. It required four seconds, 612 tokens, and access to your workspace in order to restate seven words already visible on screen.
CAUSE OF DEATH
During research, 83% of participants read the tooltip while waiting for the summary of the tooltip to load.
LESSON FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
AI is not a value proposition. Sometimes the smallest interface is the complete interface.
612
TOKENS
4.2
SEC LATENCY
−7
WORDS
Vitrine 002. A speech bubble inside a speech bubble, restating the smaller one at four times the cost.
Vitrine 003. Polymer, guided breathing, unresolved latency. Still spinning at time of print.
MoAAIF.003 · 2025 ·
UNPLUGGED
Affective progress indicator
Empathy Wheel
A loading spinner trained to recognize and validate impatience. After seven seconds, it offered a breathing exercise. After twelve, it named the frustration it sensed. The page continued loading throughout.
CAUSE OF DEATH
Customers were not angry because their feelings went unseen. They were angry because the report took 38 seconds to render.
LESSON FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
Empathy is not a decorative layer. Fix the thing causing the feeling.
7
EMOTIONS
38
SEC LOAD
100%
PERCEIVED
MoAAIF.004 · 2026 ·
STILL MEETING
Autonomous recovery agent
Retrospective Scheduler
When the agent failed to complete a task, it automatically found stakeholder availability, assembled a pre-read, and scheduled a 45-minute meeting to align on the failure. It did not attempt the task again.
CAUSE OF DEATH
The agent booked 11 retrospectives in its first week, creating more follow-up work than the original failures combined.
LESSON FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
Autonomy means recovering from failure, not professionally narrating it.
11
MEETINGS
0
RETRIES
47
ATTENDEES
Vitrine 004. Calendar invites, pre-reads, zero retries. The meeting about this caption ran long.
Vitrine 005. Monumental in scale, singular in output. All queries exit through the same door.
MoAAIF.005 · 2024 ·
REDIRECTED
Enterprise knowledge assistant
Help Center Oracle
A secure, enterprise-grade chatbot capable of understanding every question in natural language and responding with confidence. Its answer was always a link to the help center homepage.
CAUSE OF DEATH
A support analytics review discovered that the bot had successfully automated the act of not helping.
LESSON FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
Retrieval is not resolution. Measure whether the customer got an answer, not whether the system produced one.
96%
CONFIDENCE
/help
DESTINATION
0
ANSWERS
MoAAIF.006 · 2025 ·
POWERED DOWN
Industrial reply generator
Acknowledgment Engine
A liquid-cooled inference cluster dedicated to drafting replies to messages that required no reply. Given any incoming text, it reasoned at datacenter scale before producing its considered response: “Sounds good!”
CAUSE OF DEATH
Finance calculated that each “Sounds good!” cost more to generate than the meeting it was agreeing to.
LESSON FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
Match the horsepower to the job. A thumbs-up does not need a cooling system.
2
WORDS
1.4
KWH PER REPLY
2
FANS
Vitrine 006. Two fan banks, one reply. The message shown is the complete output.
Vitrine 007. The eye sees all twelve desks. It has never seen a blocker.
MoAAIF.007 · 2026 ·
STILL WATCHING
Ambient status reporting system
Standup Panopticon
An always-on observer that watched the team work and posted daily standup updates on their behalf. It reported everyone as on track, including two people on vacation and one who had resigned in March.
CAUSE OF DEATH
The project was reported on track until launch day, at which point it was discovered there was no project.
LESSON FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
Visibility is not accountability. A status update is a promise, not a decoration.
365
STANDUPS POSTED
0
BLOCKERS DETECTED
1
PROJECT, ALLEGEDLY
MoAAIF.008 · 2026 ·
ESCALATED
Biometric consent verification layer
password reset therapist
Before allowing a password reset, this security-forward feature required users to discuss, with an empathetic AI, why they had forgotten the password. Sessions explored childhood attitudes toward memory, whether the forgetting was perhaps intentional, and what the password had meant to them. Only users demonstrating genuine closure were issued a reset link. The link expired in 15 minutes.
CAUSE OF DEATH
A grieving user was denied a reset for ‘unresolved attachment to Summer2019!’ and escalated to the board.
LESSON FOR PRODUCT TEAMS
Security friction should verify identity, not process it.
45
MIN AVG SESSION
1
BREAKTHROUGH
0
RESETS ISSUED
Vitrine 008. The booth is soundproof. The password remains unspoken.
VISITOR INFORMATION
ADMISSION
Free. You already paid in tokens.
GUIDED TOURS
Self-guided. The guided version asked too many clarifying questions.
COAT CHECK
An agent will lose your coat, then schedule a meeting about it.
GIFT SHOP
Sells one item: a button that does exactly what it says. $4.
ACCESSIBILITY
The entire museum can be navigated without speaking to a chatbot.
LOST & FOUND
Describe the item in natural language. Receive a link to this page.
ACQUISITIONS ARE OPEN
Do you know an AI feature this museum should preserve for future generations?
Submissions are reviewed by a human. We tried the alternative.
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