Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 405 posts

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#351

Post by basisword »

xp84 wrote: post #119

> [EU regulations] gives people a degree of control over their personal data, including the right to ask for it to be deleted. The reason I think all-party consent laws are bad is the same reason I find the above sentence silly: If you say something out loud that is no longer your exclusive “data.” If you want to keep it secret either don’t say it, or say it under NDA or in a customary fashion such as telling a repor…

I disagree. The common sense position is by default we're not recording each other. We shouldn't have to start every discussion with a disclaimer when most people aren't recording each other most of the time. Taking some notes in a meeting is fine and very different from transcribing it in totality using a tool that has high accuracy.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#352

Post by basisword »

troyvit wrote: post #293

We have a lot of sensitive meetings these days, so we aren't recording them. We have had to put guard rails in place to keep people from sending their AI note-takers to the meetings because they don't listen to our CEO when he says not to do that. Few people in our org worry about the security implications of ingesting sensitive information with these tools. I read this from a video transcript on National Law Review…

>> We have had to put guard rails in place to keep people from sending their AI note-takers to the meetings because they don't listen to our CEO when he says not to do that.

I think this is a big issue. Lots of people give zero thought to data privacy and security and it ruins it for everyone else because companies need to switch to a culture whereby you can't run anything without permission. Maybe it's better to monitor remotely and take punitive action against those who are negligently breaking the rules that have been clear to them?

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#353

Post by basisword »

EZ-E wrote: post #190

In my opinion, sending an AI note taker to a meeting basically means that for the attendee, a recap email written by the meeting organizer would be enough - except that in my experience at least, most meeting organizers aren't writing these. Best would be the meeting organizers to leverage their AI attendee to write a draft meeting recap and sending it out after review.

Alternatively it means the person will get 6 months down the line before they realise they missed something important. It's not easy for an attendee to accurately assess the expected value of a meeting beforehand in most cases.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#355

Post by a_bonobo »

sneak wrote: post #64
jbc1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the final nod of agreement happens in real time the actual decision making process for critical product features should involve planning, thinking, research, etc. There should be a strong paper trail such that everyone knows what the decision is going to be prior to the "everyone gets together and declares this is how things are going to be" step. If them missing some meetings means they're in the dark as to…

Most people in meetings don’t type very fast, and find it easier to talk than to write. This means that prior to AI transcription/summary bots, there wasn’t much written documentation about the decisions and conclusions from meetings. Now hopefully that will change.

In my org we have rotating minutes takers - it effectively takes them out of the meeting, but they do pipe up if an issue affects them directly. Of course people's meeting taking skills vary widely but I still find the human-made minutes far superior and accurate to whatever Copilot cooks up.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#356

Post by Tainnor »

meroes wrote: post #65

The problem is these meetings are so low information density even an AI summary is not worth my time. And it’s not some elitist mindset. It’s like the entire reason there are these regular meetings is to make some mid level person feel better. They like giving directions vocally because that authority is harder to question than if they wrote up a memo and all the receivers can poke holes in it. I’m convinced most mee…

Just today I had a "communication 101" training session that was telling me, among other things, to be concise and targeted. I don't know what's either concise or targeted about an 1h session that doesn't differentiate by job description or amount of work experience.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#357

Post by ShakataGaNai »

So our company has reasonably liberal usage of Zoom's AI Assistant. To provide summaries etc. How good the summaries are is a matter of debate..... Sometimes they are fairly good, often they get small details wrong/confused. Overall I view them as a "this will remind us of high level conversation points if needed".

That being said, the notetaker is a supplementary component. It's never "in replace of a person". If someone sends an AI to my meeting instead of showing up themselves, I'm kicking it out.

If there is too much going on or too many meetings, learn to use meetings better. Learn to use emails. I'd much rather exchange a few emails than talk at an AI bot. Hell, I'll use my own AI to help me craft the email if I really feel its needed, but at least then I have the chance to make sure its right before I hit send.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#358

Post by Talanes »

ipaddr wrote: post #246
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with all processes is that people aren’t interested in sticking with them. Why is your team 20 people if the majority don’t do anything you’re remotely close to? Someone should have split the team or at least the standup. Why doesn’t your lead enforce a time limit and script? It can happen the other way round as well. My team is small but only I ever stick to the script. Every one else talks in detail for…

Now you need three managers. The reason for the 20 person standup is to save money and give lip service to the standup trend.

Same manager with right-sized stand-ups wouldn't cost anymore money, unless that manager is making many multiples over what any of their team makes. It seems more like a kneejerk reaction to not "waste" the manager's time at the expense of the actually-more-important-but-hierarchically-less-important employees.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#359

Post by mlsu »

squigz wrote: post #289
mlsu wrote: post #286

Lots of talk here about writing being far superior to talking. This is entirely true. The thing you guys have to realize is that most people, like truly 80% of the population and probably some large subset of sw eng, hate reading and writing. People see reading as a chore. The last full book they read was in an elective in college and even then they skimmed the spark notes. They see writing as a stupid thing they hav…

> Lots of talk here about writing being far superior to talking. This is entirely true. This is simply not true. Writing - particularly in the context of instant messages sent during work - cannot convey tone, and it is far less asynchronous than being able to have a conversation with someone. > A paragraph of the written word is scary to a percentage of the population, certainly most “normal people,” and definitely…

Don't be fooled. My take is only cynical if I don't acknowledge that there are different types of intelligence. Multimedia, kinesthetic, emotional, interpersonal, spatial, logical...

For example: I can write. Maybe I can write better than a D1 basketball player. Am I smarter than them? ehhh, maybe not. Their "physical intelligence" is far superior to mine. I respect it as equal to my "verbal/writing intelligence." I am scared on the basketball court, it's foreign territory to me because I'm basically a nerd who spent my time reading books. They spent their time moving around on the bball court. The magnitude of the intelligence vector is large, it just points in a totally different direction.

If anything, I think this perspective is sorely missing. People respect reading and writing as an "smart person" activity but I think that's a stultifying perspective. Intelligence is incredibly broad, that's why you have to meet people where they are -- and many times that means communicating in a different way.

However, same as how "kinesthetic intelligence" correlates to basketball, "writing intelligence" correlates to engineering. The best software engineers are good at reading and writing; there are few exceptions in my experience.

Certainly I should have said, writing is superior in this context. We're on the proverbial basketball court in this conversation :)

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#360

Post by freshpots »

stoneyhrm1 wrote: post #232
mft_ wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've led cross-functional teams in multiple organisations (albeit not in tech) and I'd argue it's a bit more complex than that. Regular team meetings can cover multiple needs, e.g.: * Keeping everyone working on a complex project updated on progress * Keeping everyone 'aligned' - (horrible corporate word but) essentially all working together effectively towards the same goals (be they short or long term) * Providing…

Spoken like a true project manager that every engineer hates.

Are you an actual engineer with a degree and subsequent accreditation through a professional body? or an "engineer" by role? Those mean very different things depending on country, quality of education and skills or...how many Microsoft Points you have.
Post reply on HN