{"id":25283,"date":"2026-01-27T07:08:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T13:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/?p=25283"},"modified":"2026-01-27T07:08:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T13:08:45","slug":"shift4-founder-gets-caught-in-ai-crosshairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/shift4-founder-gets-caught-in-ai-crosshairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Shift4 Founder Gets Caught in AI Crosshairs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AI is still a massive hype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who actually codes will tell you AI can<\/em> make you 10% faster if you really, really <\/em>set up guardrails thoughtfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise AI will make you 100% slower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI is good for generating content (RIP marketing and content creators), and summarizing long forms of text (but still requires a human in the loop to verify everything unless you want to lose legal cases and crash your firm<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a very meta way, let us show you how good AI is at generating content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We received a link<\/a> that struck us as highly suspicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hilarious if you read the content, but suspicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the surface the content in the link made ton of sense: racketeering on such a level as could only be conceived by Italian mobsters or payment bros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then the content screwed up: it referenced a specific legal case that had nothing to do with Shift4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case No. 2:23-cv-00267-JDW<\/strong>\u00a0In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania<\/em>\u00a0(Court Listener Source:\u00a0paed.uscourts.gov<\/a>\u00a0Accessible through PACER system for authorized users.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out this is a real case number, but for an entirely unrelated matter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Card Connect v Shift4 is not a real case.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because this content exists online – even if it’s patently false – it gets promoted and syndicated on websites as if it were true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here it is <\/a>on a Wiki page for Jared Isaacman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you type Shift4 v Card Connect on Google or ChatGPT?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even a fake podcast<\/a> has been generated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All of this to point out that you can’t trust the nonsense that AI generates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s been infinite promotion around AI-anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re incredibly skeptical of most of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verify everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except for content generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI has proven it can generate copious amounts of whatever content you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if none of it is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that we think of it, AI probably wrote the guarantees section of payment bro merchant agreements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI is still a massive hype. Anyone who actually codes will tell you AI can make you 10% faster if you really, really set up guardrails thoughtfully. Otherwise AI will make you 100% slower. AI is good for generating content (RIP marketing and content creators), and summarizing long forms of text (but still requires a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solutions","category-merchants","category-pos","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p81nA2-6zN","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reformingretail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-30-at-3.34.21-PM.png?fit=1202%2C686&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25283"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25295,"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25283\/revisions\/25295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reformingretail.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}