AI seems somewhat orthogonal. It may have sped up the timeline, but the people using it need to be competent in the first place.
Well, an AI will be using it of course. The people will be using the AI.
They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
21–30 of 74 posts
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#22Great idea, and hopefully great results. But it’s written like LinkedIn “broetry” and that AI image at the top promises a fluffy article. Maybe expand a bit on some of the impressive tech described in the body?
I’m at the point where if I see an AI image at the start of an article I just back right out. It would be so much better if the author just didn’t include an image at all. What did this image actually add to the content of the post? If you’re just doing something for the sake of doing it you’ve lost the plot.
I've been saying this for a while now. They could just have put an Alberta landscape shot or something else that's actually aesthetically pleasing and relevant, and doesn't feel as trashy as the picture actually in the article.
I genuinely don't understand this trend of slapping AI slop on top of your article. I've even seen good articles do it.
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#23I searched this report for "test". Result: none found. > what if a small team of public servants, equipped with modern AI development tools, built the replacement systems themselves? Next: bridges and brain surgery.
On the one hand, yes. On the other, procurement is so broken, that if their inhouse team is only marginally better, it's a win.
> procurement is so broken
Anecdata: while i was in a tiny tiny software company, we got an in at a large auto manufacturer. They said they had been trying to get someone to do that job for like 2 years.
The job was of the 'two people 3 months' magnitude. The procurement system was also of the 'two people 3 months' magnitude so we simply gave up.
In the article's case, they could have done this even before coding assistants. It would have cost the estimated 5 million instead of 850k, but that's still 10x less than the 54 million.
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m at the point where if I see an AI image at the start of an article I just back right out. It would be so much better if the author just didn’t include an image at all. What did this image actually add to the content of the post? If you’re just doing something for the sake of doing it you’ve lost the plot.
An image signals that the author put time and energy into the article and that they have an eye for detail. Even if it's an AI generated image because the author still had to pick a fitting image.
If that's the image they picked, I question their taste.
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#25I'm using AI every day (and it's not really about AI), but:
Anyone else closed the article immediately after seeing the low-taste, sloppy image at the top?
How do you call this aesthetic? "Futuristic vomit"? AKA "Generate image of: code blocks, AI-brain image, diagram, smiling guy and bunch of other crap. Make it look cool and futuristic, make no mistakes"?
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m at the point where if I see an AI image at the start of an article I just back right out. It would be so much better if the author just didn’t include an image at all. What did this image actually add to the content of the post? If you’re just doing something for the sake of doing it you’ve lost the plot.
An image signals that the author put time and energy into the article and that they have an eye for detail. Even if it's an AI generated image because the author still had to pick a fitting image.
Two posters above found that the signal was more like “get ready for a gen-AI article filled with vague woolly sentences”.
Wasn't there anything relevant available? Screenshots of the new tools in a before/after collage perhaps?
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#27> where we identify public servants with strong technical aptitude across government, bring them into dedicated product teams
> The team’s approach was straightforward. Build working software fast. Put it in front of real users early. Collect feedback. Fix things quickly. Release updates every two weeks.
> That’s a 95% cost reduction. Both systems instead of one. Delivered faster. With 643 users already on the platform
This is a proven solution. These parts, the non-AI management ones, are proven to work in all sorts of places. Gov.uk is another example.
However, there's one massive problem with this: it doesn't involve the free market and it doesn't make any money for corporations to feed back to politicians in campaign donation kickbacks. It even involves respecting civil servants - maybe even paying them market wages! These parts are so heretical that most governments would choose the solution that 10X more expensive and also doesn't work, every single time.
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#28[dead]
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m at the point where if I see an AI image at the start of an article I just back right out. It would be so much better if the author just didn’t include an image at all. What did this image actually add to the content of the post? If you’re just doing something for the sake of doing it you’ve lost the plot.
An image signals that the author put time and energy into the article and that they have an eye for detail. Even if it's an AI generated image because the author still had to pick a fitting image.
I disagree. Especially with AI, it’s far too easy to generate and insert an image with no time, energy, or eye for detail.
Authors do it because it supposedly leads to better engagement, shows up bigger on social media, and breaks up the text. But generally, unless the visual content meaningfully adds to the text content, users will largely ignore it.
Re: They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m at the point where if I see an AI image at the start of an article I just back right out. It would be so much better if the author just didn’t include an image at all. What did this image actually add to the content of the post? If you’re just doing something for the sake of doing it you’ve lost the plot.
An image signals that the author put time and energy into the article and that they have an eye for detail. Even if it's an AI generated image because the author still had to pick a fitting image.
An AI image signals that the author did not put time and energy of their own in, they had the AI make it up. It's a yellow flag.