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Not everyone is using AI for everything

gabrielweinberg.com

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Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#531

Post by account42 »

solatic wrote: post #380
hypfer wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. Have you considered just answering truthfully? Would you even want to work somewhere where you need to play a role and where they flip out when you say the wrong word you should've correctly guessed through mind reading? T…

> Have you considered just answering truthfully? To give you just a little more context than other commenters - You answer truthfully when you're interviewing from a position of power. Either you're already employed somewhere and you're taking your time exploring your options to see if maybe you can end up somewhere a little better, or you're an employer with applicants lined out the door and you want to winnow them…

Sometimes the only reason you don't have power is because you have internalized the idea that you don't.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#532

Post by account42 »

michaelsalim wrote: post #448
foxglacier wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're an AI-happy employer though. What if their truthful answer was that they never tried to use LLMs and refuse to because they waste water or because of an overconfident view of their own skills, or they don't want to help a clanker steal their job? These are all popular beliefs that can easily come from following the right crowd rather than forming their own opinion. In fact, from what I usually h…

I guess that's the point though? If their opinion only comes from common popular opinions, then that signal is quite useless to me. In this case though, I'll admit that it would be a negative signal if they never tried it even once and refuse to do so. You can't make a solid opinion on things you never try after all. It would be different if they at least gave it a shot and disliked it.

> You can't make a solid opinion on things you never try after all.

Of course you can, from the effect you see it have on others. Not everyone needs to do hard drugs to say they are bad for example.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#533

Post by satvikpendem »

bandrami wrote: post #521
satvikpendem wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what I'm using AI for these days, seems like it always was.

So there are these things called "text editors"

Hands don't type as fast as machines, no matter what editor you use.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#534

Post by solatic »

account42 wrote: post #531
solatic wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you considered just answering truthfully? To give you just a little more context than other commenters - You answer truthfully when you're interviewing from a position of power. Either you're already employed somewhere and you're taking your time exploring your options to see if maybe you can end up somewhere a little better, or you're an employer with applicants lined out the door and you want to winnow them…

Sometimes the only reason you don't have power is because you have internalized the idea that you don't.

That's true, but it's about as helpful as a self-help book. Therapists, coaches, mentors are all helpful in that case.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#535

Post by AlwaysRock »

hypfer wrote: post #82
acc_297 wrote: post #72

On the post-grad job hunt right now - I note that most employers will ask in a technical interview or whiteboard interview "how are you using LLMs?" It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. I've been responding with a sort of long winded answer about how 'there is…

> It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. Have you considered just answering truthfully? Would you even want to work somewhere where you need to play a role and where they flip out when you say the wrong word you should've correctly guessed through mind reading? T…

Ha. Interviewing is about answering questions in the way your interviewer wants them to be answered. It is a game of trying to "read minds" by figuring out the most common/best possible interview answer for any given question even if it doesnt reflect your own personal opinion.

People will say this is bad but then when they interview folks judge the interviewee if they dont answer questions how they expected the question to be answered.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#536

Post by AlwaysRock »

pipes wrote: post #334
emodendroket wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it's because he is seeking to pay rent, food bills, and other expenses through employment.

A truthful, nuanced, well reasoned answer will be well received by an employer with a culture you want to work in.

Plenty of good companies have awful recruiting and interviewing practices. The reverse is true as well.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#537

Post by zamadatix »

bjt wrote: post #485
magistr4te wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say this argument is not relevant to the specific question the article tries to answer, as AI adoption through these means is forced and may in many cases go against user preferences. Edit: The deciding factor being whether you want to figure out if people are interested in AI / find it useful, or if the question you seek answered is more akin to "X% of people consume lead in their food"

People eating lead in their food don't know it's there. People engaging with the AI built into Google results pages can see it, and assumedly Google's A/B testing showed that they engaged with it.

Google also serves ads, most people have gotten pretty good at ignoring them while the ads simultaneously being used enough to be profitable. Similarly, A/B testing only shows whether the net result is positive (by some measure to Google's interest) - not that most people engaged (or engaged positively) with it.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#538

Post by camdenreslink »

jacobgold wrote: post #64
camdenreslink wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real best case scenario is using LLMs to help build deterministic systems. Instead of asking an LLM to do some task that you know will be repeated, instead ask the LLM to build a program (Python script or whatever) to do the task.

Making systems fully deterministic ignores the entire purpose of having agents involved. IMHO the best of both worlds option is agents working with deterministic CLIs. Where the agent does the reasoning (and text generation) but uses CLIs to carry out all of the actions (issuing refunds, unblocking accounts, or whatever). It's possible to get very reliable and consistent work out of agents when they're using well wri…

I think it just depends on the workflow. A lot of times (probably the majority of the time) a well crafted deterministic process is what people want.

Sometimes you can have a multistep deterministic workflow with a decision that needs made somewhere in the middle, which is where an LLM that can call tools is useful.

I think there are much less repeated tasks where you would want a fully agentic process (but there are many ad hoc tasks where that is exactly what you want).

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#539

Post by staticautomatic »

overfeed wrote: post #469
TACD wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why “truthful, nuanced, well reasoned” is the long-shot vs cagey and evasive.

Have you seen the job market lately? You call the response "cagey and evasive", but that is for an objectively a bad interview question, one wrung below "How many years experience do you have prompting Anthropic Opus? We are an Opus shop." People are not locked into their current way of using AI and it is trivial to match how one works with AI to match employers requirements. It's a question that deserves an idealize…

In what way is “How are you using AI?” an objectively bad question?
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