chat

Hey are we even breaking even?

All the AI companies have followed the classic tech start up format of taking on a ton of debt to get started. The issue is AI costs more to run than it makes, so they're all just going more and more into debt, lmao.

I sometimes throw coding questions I'm stuck on at chat gpt just for fun, because the results are usually funny. Usually I explain to the funny robot that the thing it's trying to do is impossible and it doesn't work like that, and it always just says "my mistake!" and then doubles down on being more incorrect. Absolutely useless.

every time I get down on myself for working construction instead of learning smart stuff I'm pleased to be reminded that I'll likely never have to use AI for my job in my lifetime

I saw this with a member of the Global Leadership team at work recently, and the appeal of AI to the executive class made sense.

All they do is write reports and presentations. That's what AI is good at since it's just a text extrusion machine, and the documents these people ask it to make are very generic and could just be templated.

But they feel better thinking they got AI to generate an original report for them instead of filling in the blanks in a word doc on the intranet.

It saves them time and makes them feel important, so they think it can do the same for everyone else. They don't realise some people need to actually get things right, or need to do things so specific an AI couldn't just fill in the blanks for them.

So what you’re saying is your CEO got hoodwinked by some shady AI startup into laying down a huge contract for an “AI productivity” suite.

The fact that this business you work for hasn’t already collapsed from failure is all I need to know about capitalism

We had something similar where I work (although less invasive than this wild shit), and it got me thinking.

For jobs that don't have a clear ceiling, or a clear list of contained tasks, it's hard to measure output, and it's hard to know if you've successfully replaced a person with automation. For instance, how well is the marketing department doing.

The bosses have heard so much about AI, they want that perceived competitive advantage. But they can't really simply eliminate these jobs. So what they're looking for is AI-powered employees because they believe that will maximize their output.

Most employees can't actually get anything good out of AI, especially if they're competent at other technologies like excel, but the boss WILL not hear that. They will only hear that some of their employees are unwilling or unable to harness the competitive potential of AI. That suddenly means that every employee has a strong incentive to present their labor as AI-enhanced. To exaggerate how much it helps them. To make the boss think they've at least reached parity with their competition.

AI productivity has become a self-reinforcing myth in nearly our whole society.

Can we just put the CEOs in wood chippers already? I'm so tired of these confidently incorrect idiots ruining the world.

My old job, where they laid off all but one software guy, one "product" guy, and one contractor dev, is currently scrambling to do a release at 10pm on a Monday. Why? No one knows, except the CEO wants it done. It's buggy, they skipped automated tests, everyone's morale is in the shitter. The customers don't care. Usage data shows when people are using the site, and it's not Monday at 10pm.

He also wants everyone to use AI for everything. And for everyone to go into the office as much as possible, too.

My career goal: openai.

Malicious compliance time...

Edit: Even vague details about the silly AI nonsense at my work make me feel like I'm self doxxing, just know that it caused trouble and didn't help anything and also was very expensive.

AI is a scam and every SVP of bullshit in this country is a mark apparently.

Your CEO needs to be fed through a wood chipper.

Look, this isn't good career advice, but hear me out...

"My number one career goal is to never engage with AI."

Benefit 1: you don't have to listen to this dumbass

Benefit 2: you don't have to engage with AI

Benefit 3: whenever AI is brought up in a meeting or if AI content is present anywhere near you, you have a great excuse to just walk out

Bonus achievement: eventually claim that your boss is AI and refuse to speak with them until they fill out an analog CAPTCHA they must complete using a crayon.

Many such cases these days

So easy to game this id never have to do productive work again.

Shouldn't be too hard, should it? Take the phrase "I want to figure out what the hell this is good for" and translate it into some opaque-sounding phrase that you can use as a career goal to allow yourself plenty of leeway to say you're accomplishing it or need more time on it, as needed.

Won't tracking make the point? It will suck for a bit, but I can imagine the shareholders'/board meetings looking at how much time was spent correcting AI.

AI where it is sucks, this was probably the real game all along.

Use ChatGPT to write your AI career goals. Some bullshit about exploring the dynamism of applying emerging AI technology to achieve high end deliverables... Yadda Yadda.

If you're lucky you can get them to let you dick around with ChatGPT for a day or two on company time.

on the other hand, yesterday I got ChatGPT to explain in detail how to pirate movies and TV shows, so there is at least one legit use.