If you've never seen this level of perverse incentive, you have been lucky. The creation of and subsequent exploitation of them aren't new. For pre computer examples: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-2/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

I have seen similar at my company so it is highly plausible.

I call unintended consequences on this KPI culture

They polished the turd more than stating, but the bones are real.

I don’t.

Things that rhyme with this have indeed been happening at the biggest names.

I call AI on this comment