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Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

nytimes.com

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Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#171

Post by loeg »

Aurornis wrote: post #168
softwaredoug wrote: post #91

I noticed a lot more joy using AI from people at smaller companies or working by themselves :) I say this as someone self employed that burned almost $1000 on tokens last month. And had. A lot of fun doing it.

Meta is on the extreme other end of this. The article opens with how they're now using AI to monitor how everyone uses their computers. It's still insane to me that Meta thought this would be a good idea, or that employees would be comfortable with it even though they claim it's only used for anonymous AI training.

> using AI to monitor how everyone uses their computers

It's the other way around -- they're monitoring the computers to train AI.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#172

Post by pitched »

timoth3y wrote: post #102
ost-ing wrote: post #3

As someone who has spent a vast portion of life believing technology would make life better, I've come to the realisation that this idea is a fallacy. Technology amplifies power and until we collectively redefine and enforce a value system that benefits us all, the advancements in technology simply serve as a means of subjugation

I think that is the core truth of the matter. Technology itself does not make life better. I recently published an article about the Luddites. If you look at their actual demands, they were not anti-tech. They were labor activists. Life got much, much worse for most people in the industrial revolution until the laws they advocated were finally implemented. https://www.disruptingjapan.com/the-real-luddites-would-have.…

The Luddites were against the systems that were shifting work away from skilled workers (them) to unskilled workers (commonly children). I have no doubt serious injury and death happened at those machines but find it hard to believe that was the cause of the Luddites. All signs point to them being more worried about themselves.

There’s no way they would have been pro-AI. It would take a very skilled VC to warp the world enough to make that sound true.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#173

Post by codemog »

Tenoke wrote: post #163

In 2019 I suggested[0] you might reach AGI if you train on computer usage - mouse movement, keypresses, what's on the screen etc. - and it sounds like Meta are kind of trying some form of it. 0. https://svilentodorov.xyz/blog/human-imitating-task/

A lot of people had this idea. You’re going to have to take a vague idea to fruition if you want the props you’re looking for.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#174

Post by asveikau »

loeg wrote: post #170

Mark hates leakers, so it is kind of intensely funny that the NYT seems to have a direct line to probably dozens of ICs. Ultimately, it's hard to keep secrets shared with 70,000 employees.

Years ago when following what Zuckerberg did occupied more space in my brain, it struck me that he can "hate leakers" but not look inward and change his behavior in a way that doesn't upset people and make them want to leak. He is a very reactionary guy, and not a "how can I be the change" or "what did I do to cause this" kind of guy.

I thought of this during his various scandals at the end of the 2010s. Everything was a PR reaction for him, rather than looking inward. The best PR is not being an asshole. I wonder if he's thought about it.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#175

Post by loeg »

foota wrote: post #143
j-bos wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been feeling that energy too, trying so hard to stay at my current big co job for the health insurance. But the draw is pulling me hard.

I've generally assumed that AI would make developers get lower compensation because of the lowered quantity of developers required for the same output, but this raises the possibility of it actually increasing if more developers end up doing their own things instead of entering the broader labor market :)

It could increase compensation by growing the economy. (E.g., perhaps counterintuitively, skilled immigration has this effect.)

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#176

Post by sterlind »

loeg wrote: post #171
Aurornis wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta is on the extreme other end of this. The article opens with how they're now using AI to monitor how everyone uses their computers. It's still insane to me that Meta thought this would be a good idea, or that employees would be comfortable with it even though they claim it's only used for anonymous AI training.

> using AI to monitor how everyone uses their computers It's the other way around -- they're monitoring the computers to train AI.

probably both, to be fair.

Meta may know that their employees will put up with it, given how depressing the job market is right now, but unhappy, cynical, resentful employees do not produce good software and innovations.

there's a real financial cost to treating devs like cage-raised livestock.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#177

Post by loeg »

asveikau wrote: post #174
loeg wrote: post #170

Mark hates leakers, so it is kind of intensely funny that the NYT seems to have a direct line to probably dozens of ICs. Ultimately, it's hard to keep secrets shared with 70,000 employees.

Years ago when following what Zuckerberg did occupied more space in my brain, it struck me that he can "hate leakers" but not look inward and change his behavior in a way that doesn't upset people and make them want to leak. He is a very reactionary guy, and not a "how can I be the change" or "what did I do to cause this" kind of guy. I thought of this during his various scandals at the end of the 2010s. Everything w…

I don't think there's any possible way to behave to satisfy every single employee of tens of thousands.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#178

Post by tardedmeme »

fidotron wrote: post #33
ost-ing wrote: post #3

As someone who has spent a vast portion of life believing technology would make life better, I've come to the realisation that this idea is a fallacy. Technology amplifies power and until we collectively redefine and enforce a value system that benefits us all, the advancements in technology simply serve as a means of subjugation

Let's go there: this is what the Unabomber was on about, and there has long been an effort to stop people noticing this. Ultimately you end up with either going for totalitarianism (either to arrest development in the status quo, maintain a state of anarcho primitivism or technocratic tedium) or we resist that and break out by trying to forge forward into some unknown unchartered territory. In practice we have no cho…

"uncharted territory"

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#179

Post by asveikau »

loeg wrote: post #177
asveikau wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago when following what Zuckerberg did occupied more space in my brain, it struck me that he can "hate leakers" but not look inward and change his behavior in a way that doesn't upset people and make them want to leak. He is a very reactionary guy, and not a "how can I be the change" or "what did I do to cause this" kind of guy. I thought of this during his various scandals at the end of the 2010s. Everything w…

I don't think there's any possible way to behave to satisfy every single employee of tens of thousands.

Can't please every human alive, so I might as well not try to do any better. This is a very Zuckerbergian take.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#180

Post by loeg »

sterlind wrote: post #176
loeg wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> using AI to monitor how everyone uses their computers It's the other way around -- they're monitoring the computers to train AI.

probably both, to be fair. Meta may know that their employees will put up with it, given how depressing the job market is right now, but unhappy, cynical, resentful employees do not produce good software and innovations. there's a real financial cost to treating devs like cage-raised livestock.

It's unclear how you would use LLMs to monitor clicks. Unless you just mean they're authoring the monitoring software with LLM assistance (which is probably right).
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