The boss at a place I used to work is all in on AI bullshit. My friend works for the company remotely. He says the boss sends him massively long email, constructed by AI, full of rambling half ideas. He said he used to try to pick through it and reply appropriately and professionally. The boss would feed that into AI and copy/paste the reply back.
Now my friend doesn’t even read the email. He throws it into AI, tells AI to craft a well thought out reply, and just sends that back at the boss. He told me if the boss won’t personally read and reply, he won’t either.
Last time I talked with him he said the email chain has been going over 4 months, it’s still going on, but he has no idea what it’s about anymore.
if a colleague tells me to ask AI or gives me a response from AI again I will fucking kill somebody
I used to be in IT for years. I left around covid period.
I’m SO HAPPY right now. AI drives me insane as it is. I can’t imagine working in an office having people making idiot decisions because it’s what AI recommended.
Rest assured, they would be making more idiotic decisions without AI assistance. AI is just reinforcing what they already think, but occasionally (maybe 12% of the time) it might nudge them in a better direction.
Not suprised, it feeds on the incompetent
“Reverse centaur”
(According to Cory Doctorow, a ‘centaur’ is a human augmented by tech, and a ‘reverse centaur’ is a human who is a mere meaty appendage to a tech system)
Shouldn’t that be cyborg instead of centaur?
Its more accurate to ask, which parts are the AI workhorse; the head or the body?
If it’s the body then AI is helping you (the head) to do hard tasks which probably fits your definition of a cyborg. If it’s the head as in the reverse centaur, then you (the body) are doing all the work for an AI model.
I think the argument is that at this point the use of AI has been found to be more useful for tasks that’s managers and bosses perform than more technical tasks that would be assigned to employees underneath them. And if those managers were replaced by AI then you would have a tireless manager overseeing workers doing more difficult work that do tire out but are expected to keep up with demands from the management.
One of the only benefits of this technology is that it will expose the incompetence of management. They can’t hide their stupid now.
theyd fire all their employees and blame the comapny’s implosion on sun spots before tech execs admit their own failures. But nothing of value will be lost if nearly all tech companies went bankrupt overnight.
Oh, they will continue to hide their stupid as un-successfully as they always have. Some get away with it for a day, some for a quarter, some for many years.
So, basically shitty bosses are shitty?
The sycophantic LLM behavior phenomenon is very real. LLMs will tell you what you want to hear, so yes, if shitty bosses want to hear how great they are, they’ve got a new friend (maybe their only one…)
Honestly, if there are jobs that could best be replaced by AI, it seems that management could be high on that list. I’m sure many of us have had shitty managers and know how disastrous that can be for productivity. In some cases an algorithm would definitely have done better. It could hardly have done worse.
Big organizations are constantly trying to optimize the middle layers. Do you have a 5:1 reporting ratio so the manager really knows what everybody is doing, or do you have a 25:1 reporting ratio and cut out half the layers in the “telephone” miscommunication up the chain game? Seems like AI tools could bump up the optimal ration a little, if they’re used well, but middle managers aren’t the first group I’d pick to use something like an AI agent “well.”
treating an AI as analogous to an algorithm is a giant endorsement to the AI and a massive insult to the algo’s
Sounds like the bosses positions should be cut then. If the default is ai then let the ai. No need for those positions and there I saved you a bunch of money.
Sounds like the bosses positions should be cut then.
And in a worker cooperative that’s exactly what would happen.
I’ve always wondered if that’s how management views their hierarchy. Many middle managers view themselves as a wasted resource
In a worker coop workers generally want, appreciate, and hire managers for themselves. But there are power dynamic diffetences:
- The workers are the boss
- Managers do not get overinflated compensation packages
- A typical max income differential of lowest to highest paid is 1:10
Managers help organize and facilitate production, but it is the workers themselves who have to be pleased.
That’s not to say some worker coop couldn’t choose to do without the manager role. Maybe some exist like that.
This started over a year and a half ago at my company.
Over half my department was fired, and now they are forcing us to give assessments on AI tools to replace the jobs of the rest of us.
We’re so fucked, guys. This isn’t just where I work, it’s most places from what I’m hearing.
The writing was on the wall when that many layoffs happened. If they’re that willing to take that kind of risk, they’ve been on insecure financial footing for a while. Best move on ASAP.
Last time I job-hopped was when my CEO took a tour of the R&D department, chewing each of us out individually, complaining how we’re too expensive and he can’t afford us… a job offer came through the next day and I was out in 2 weeks. They asked why I was leaving, all too simple: you remember Mr. “I had a bad day in sales, so I took my insecurities out on the R&D guys” tirade? Yeah, that was a big factor.
and then after giving them the instructions to the AI tools, they will just lay off the remaining people. and then they hire less people, rinse and repeat. in the mean time they will probably try to outsource people as well.
with the current layoffs, im hearing alot of people just moving in back with family, and hasnt moved out since then on certain forums, and people still have jobs in some industries think thier friends/families are just not trying hard enough or worst resenting them because they are being lazy and not independent.
The computer did that auto layoff thing again!
There was a funny exchange at my work where a manager AI generated a big sheet of testing specs and requirements and the engineer just ran it through AI and sent it back. Then there was a crash out where he had to justify why his action was ok but the otherside was bad.
No good point was made it was just I can do this because I’m the boss
I’m so glad I don’t work anymore.
As per the Peter Principle, ‘AI’, when used by businesses, means Amplified Incompetence.
AI and tech execs are like two garbage trucks which are on fire crashing in a high speed head-on collision.
Thankfully not my management but my SO boss is out of control. He keep feeding meeting notes to chat gpt to get actions and decisions. Like company level stuff. This has been going on For years and keeps using company time to talk about personal AI projects like making music. He even kept my partner late because he was talking about it! This stuff is Not even remotely related to the Department. My SO is losing patience with this bloke. Its no wonder no one in upper management respects him.
One of the reasons I just found a new job. Clear emails completely produced by AI and not proofread.
