The AI Thread

[Mito Man]

It’s not overdue until they’re all publicly traded and all the pension funds are invested. Tis the beautiful tech lifecycle.

[240PP]

I'm currently reading The Convenience Trap by Michael Gerlich which is all about how we are losing our ability to work through the tough part of problem solving, starting with a blank page, or negotiating through bad, mad or leftfield ideas. It's a bit ponderous, but interesting stuff nonetheless. It's pointing to people getting answers quicker, while not really understanding the epistemic basis of that answer, which doesn't necessarily result in a good outcome, even if you get there far more efficiently.

Added to kindle list. The dumbing down of the populace worries me and I wonder where it’ll all end up. We’re at the point now where colleagues are using copilot to write emails. I get using it for complicated or repetitive tasks but if you find it a struggle to articulate your thoughts or ideas then we’re all fucked.

It’s an open secret that pretty much the whole company used copilot to write their mid year appraisals. I used ChatGPT and, in a moment of mild genius, manually introduced a couple of typos for authenticity. Got me some praise for ‘not using AI like everyone else’

[Sundayjumper]

I discovered today that we are being told to use AI to write the entries in the risk register so that they’re all consistent. Feels like an open door to a systemic oversight that blows up in our faces.

On that topic “data centre being blown up” had previously been considered & dismissed. It’s now on the list

[GG.]

I discovered today that we are being told to use AI to write the entries in the risk register so that they’re all consistent. Feels like an open door to a systemic oversight that blows up in our faces.

On that topic “data centre being blown up” had previously been considered & dismissed. It’s now on the list

Doesn't AI inherently re-generate things from scratch - in our experience consistency is the one thing its not good at...

I guess you could prompt it to make the all the same... but then which bits should be conformed and which not...

[Sundayjumper]

I think they meant the format & style rather than the exact words. I don’t have to put stuff on there fortunately so it’s Not My Problem.

[Beany]

Good god, the last thing I want to do in an external audit is to be regurgitating an AIs interpretation of what I think a risk/mitigation is. I'll write it myself thanks, that way the explanation won't hallucinate compliance with some non existant international standard or claim our DCs have certification that they don't, or just make up something that has nothing to do with the risk itself

That sounds like a recipe for disaster, and more importantly, for people to stop taking the risk register seriously because 'the AI can do it'.

[dinny_g]

The dumbing down of the populace worries me and I wonder where it’ll all end up.

[Gavster]

Added to kindle list. The dumbing down of the populace worries me and I wonder where it’ll all end up. We’re at the point now where colleagues are using copilot to write emails. I get using it for complicated or repetitive tasks but if you find it a struggle to articulate your thoughts or ideas then we’re all fucked.

It’s an open secret that pretty much the whole company used copilot to write their mid year appraisals. I used ChatGPT and, in a moment of mild genius, manually introduced a couple of typos for authenticity. Got me some praise for ‘not using AI like everyone else’

It is a concern regarding how it will play out. The book carefully articulates how past innovations helped us think, e.g. faster access to information, quicker processing of our outputs, better distribution of ideas etc. This is the first time the thinking part has been outsourced, and that's the big difference.

Funny you say about adding some typos, I wrote a load of information into some long messages for a groupchat and there were a bunch of typos that I left in, simply so people knew it wasn't an AI output

[Holley]

Added to kindle list. The dumbing down of the populace worries me and I wonder where it’ll all end up. We’re at the point now where colleagues are using copilot to write emails. I get using it for complicated or repetitive tasks but if you find it a struggle to articulate your thoughts or ideas then we’re all fucked.

It’s an open secret that pretty much the whole company used copilot to write their mid year appraisals. I used ChatGPT and, in a moment of mild genius, manually introduced a couple of typos for authenticity. Got me some praise for ‘not using AI like everyone else’

It is a concern regarding how it will play out. The book carefully articulates how past innovations helped us think, e.g. faster access to information, quicker processing of our outputs, better distribution of ideas etc. This is the first time the thinking part has been outsourced, and that's the big difference.

Funny you say about adding some typos, I wrote a load of information into some long messages for a groupchat and there were a bunch of typos that I left in, simply so people knew it wasn't an AI output

Currently listening to 'Forgiving Humanity, how the most innovative species became the most dangerous'. Book likens innovation to compound interest, in that technology is continually speeding up which will lead to one inevitable outcome. But that this can't be helped because it's in our nature to innovate, improve, make things better.

[ZedLeg]

As someone who has always thought that gen ai as sold is snake oil, seeing people getting to the point of doing things deliberately badly to differentiate themselves from the idiot machine is bizarre

[dinny_g]

I think one enviable consequence of AI will be the slow but unavoidable devaluing of roles and services which will build and snowball

We've been using CoPilot at work for about 3 months (took ages to get its use approved). We used to have an old adage, "If you want to do something complicated in Excel, ask and accountant" but I'm now doing very complicated data analysis in Excel but just asking Co-pilot to do it. Before Co-pilot, I couldn't even build a Pivot Table

So why would anyone pay for Excel training anymore - or any Microsoft product training. That entire industry is a dead man walking. As are Data Migration Specialist, Marketing Designers... the lost goes on...

So for now, it's greatly speeding up my work and introducing more and more quality to what I deliver - but it won't be long before "the business" will realise they can plan their own projects - Activities, Dependencies, Timescales. They won't even need to have any wisdom at defining this - they can just point Project and Co Pilot at previous plans that have been implemented define a few constraints and they're there

So my role gets relegated to "Project Do'er" rather than Project Manager etc...

and before long...

[Jobbo]

I thought Wall-E presented a very realistic expectation of the future of civilisation. I just didn't expect it to happen within my lifetime.

Mind you, I didn't expect Back to the Future's 2015 to happen within my lifetime either

[240PP]

Added to kindle list. The dumbing down of the populace worries me and I wonder where it’ll all end up. We’re at the point now where colleagues are using copilot to write emails. I get using it for complicated or repetitive tasks but if you find it a struggle to articulate your thoughts or ideas then we’re all fucked.

It’s an open secret that pretty much the whole company used copilot to write their mid year appraisals. I used ChatGPT and, in a moment of mild genius, manually introduced a couple of typos for authenticity. Got me some praise for ‘not using AI like everyone else’

It is a concern regarding how it will play out. The book carefully articulates how past innovations helped us think, e.g. faster access to information, quicker processing of our outputs, better distribution of ideas etc. This is the first time the thinking part has been outsourced, and that's the big difference.

I read (or watched, can't remember...) something last week that was basically saying that the industrial revolution brought us machinery that replaced men's muscles but everything worked out ok; it made us more efficient and it introduced more jobs and different industries. But like you say, if we're now at the point where the brain has also been outsourced, as humans what do we have left to offer?

I was at a datacentre industry event a few weeks ago and was chatting to the CEO of a Swedish DC company. Up until only about two years ago their main challenge/risk used to be building a DC without knowing who or how many customers they would fill it with. Their latest facility has been swallowed up by a single AI customer before it's even finished. He couldn't let on who it was but as I'd been drinking I asked if it was OpenAI or Anthropic. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

[Mito Man]

We’re just chasing efficiency at the end of the day. Whether it’s natural selection or technological advancements eventually the most efficient system wins. We’re just at a crossroads where it’s now more efficient to bypass the human entirely.

Hence the argument that we can just all sit back and enjoy life once AI takes over but I reckon it will be absolute shit

[Gavster]

If the industrial revolution brought efficiency and replaced human muscles, it replaced them with a more dormant lifestyle and sitting at desks, which are causing many health issues. If our brains are replaced and subsequently atrophy in the same way, we'll just end up with a bunch of moronic idiots on the dole.

It's reminiscent of food, because when you dig into the biggest motivation behind all of the major developements in food products and services, aside from profit, it's convenience. And my supposition is that when people outsource decisions around food in the pursuit of convenience rarely has a positive effect on health - even when the products are 'healthy'.

[dinny_g]

Hence the argument that we can just all sit back and enjoy life once AI takes over but I reckon it will be absolute shit

Who's going to pay for it - who's going to provide if we're not working, therefore not earning, therefore not paying Tax and unable to buy the things that computers and machines are making without us...

[240PP]

Hence the argument that we can just all sit back and enjoy life once AI takes over but I reckon it will be absolute shit

Who's going to pay for it - who's going to provide if we're not working, therefore not earning, therefore not paying Tax and unable to buy the things that computers and machines are making without us...

Universal basic income. It will provide a shite and tedious lifestyle and maybe a budget Chinese car while the 1% are having a whale of a time.

[dinny_g]

I still can't get my head around the "economics of the future"....

Suppose 20 million people loose their jobs over 10 to 15 years. That's a hell of a lot of Income Tax that's lost. Will the tax take from the remaining workforce be able to provide this basic financial credit, plus housing (as I'm guessing, a significant portion of that 20 million will loose their homes, need housing etc.). What if 25 million loose their jobs? What about 30 million etc. Given that the 34 odd million people who are gainfully employed in the UK can't really fund the provision of adequate social care for 1.7 million people currently unemployed, the numbers don't stack up.

The entire global economy is founded on the circular principle of people working to earn money to pay for goods and services which means the providers of those goods and services need to employ them to provide them etc.

Take out working people and the system crashes

[ZedLeg]

Hence the argument that we can just all sit back and enjoy life once AI takes over but I reckon it will be absolute shit

Who's going to pay for it - who's going to provide if we're not working, therefore not earning, therefore not paying Tax and unable to buy the things that computers and machines are making without us...

Universal basic income. It will provide a shite and tedious lifestyle and maybe a budget Chinese car while the 1% are having a whale of a time.

Yeah, that's not what people who want UBI are pushing for

Nobody is forcing yous to keep voting for people who'll let your dystopian vision happen.

[Shlergen]

The dumbing down of the populace worries me and I wonder where it’ll all end up.

I always refer to this, it's happening.