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AI is making us work more

tawandamunongo.dev

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Re: AI is making us work more

#131

Post by fragmede »

anarticle wrote: post #129
fragmede wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't lie, just bill by the job/task. Initial build database integration accessibility speed

Implying that I'm lying is a tall tale, I am capturing the efficiency of my own efforts. Sorry you see it that way. Consider your employer sells your time for more than they pay you and you'll see it my way.

If you worked for 15 minutes but wrote 3 hours on the invoice, how is that not a lie?

I'm not saying you're wrong to charge the full amount for the same job that used to take much longer. I fully support that, go get that bread! I'm just not down with writing 3h on an invoice when it took 15 mins.

Re: AI is making us work more

#133

Post by hirvi74 »

DrewADesign wrote: post #77
HWR_14 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I bill the 3h. So, fraud? If you put a fixed price based on 3 hours, that's of course fine. If you lie about how long work takes you, that's fraud. Unless your bids are what you bill not what it takes, and you would bill the same 3 hours if it took you 4. In which case it's a fixed price under a different name.

Yeah contracted flat rate and hourly billing are just different. If you’re billing someone for time and not deliverables, it’s not ethical to bill someone for more time than you spend on it because you were more efficient. The ‘right’ way to do it is be able to deliver more than everyone else so you get a lot more work, undercut your competition, and take a bigger market share. If you’re not willing to do that, use a…

> The ‘right’ way to do it is be able to deliver more than everyone else so you get a lot more work, undercut your competition, and take a bigger market share.

You are absolutely correct from a business perspective. However, I just cannot shake the feeling that I am so 'over' this society that we have created. I'm near my breaking point, I swear. Each passing day, I just think living off the grid sounds better and better.

Again, I am not trying to dog you or anything. It's just that reading statements like yours reminds my how unfit I am for this society. It's a 'me problem' not a 'you/them problem.'

I know life today provides an abundance of boons. However, I sometimes wish I could live in a time where I could be the town blacksmith, cooper, tailor, etc.. My job would be to provide a role for my small community and we would all know and rely on each other. I'm not cut out for this hyper-optimized world.

Re: AI is making us work more

#134

Post by rightbyte »

fragmede wrote: post #82
Aurornis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automation is a broad topic. At home I save time because my dishwasher automates washing my dishes. The clothes washer and dryer are a lot easier than doing it by hand. The fruit and vegetable at the grocery store are a lot cheaper than they would be without automation. I think individuals who get comfortable in their jobs don’t like automation arriving at their station because it upends the order of things just as t…

The two other things that come immediately to mind are clothes; if a shirt cost $4,000 per, our closets would look way different, and cars. No matter your personal opinion on cars vs public transportation, if even if the cheapest vehicle cost $500,000, society would look way different. The real thing it exposes though, is which side of the capital vs labor you work on. If the widget factory suddenly is able to make 1…

Petite bourgeoisie maybe?

Re: AI is making us work more

#136

Post by xg15 »

I'd like to know, from people who really believe that we just need to invent the right technology, then we could all do 20 hour weeks and spend the rest of the time in leisure, what keeps them from doing that right now, and what exactly they believe that miracle tech would change.

It seems relatively obvious to me that if a society has work as its cultural core then no amount of productivity increase will get rid of work - it would destabilize the entire society before it could do so.

Re: AI is making us work more

#137

Post by CharlesW »

consumer451 wrote: post #78

I know it's making me work more, and I am thrilled. I have not shipped production code for 20 years, and it was desktop back then. I am now able to single-handedly create webapp MVPs, one of which is getting traction. If anything actually takes-off, there will certainly be need for a real dev to take over. Also, my commits are not "vibe coded." I have read every single loc, and found so many issues that I am stunned…

> I realize that I am an outlier, but is anyone else in this same boat?

Yep. I have a computer science background but have always been "the most technical product management/marketing guy in the room". Now I'm having lots of fun building a SaaS and a mobile app to my standards, plus turning out micro-projects like pwascore.com in a day or two.

It turns out that I love designing/architecting products, just not the grind-y coding bits. Because I create lots of tests, use code analysis tools, etc., I'm confident that I'm creating higher quality code than (for example) what most outsourced coders are creating without LLMs.

Re: AI is making us work more

#138

Post by bdangubic »

everdrive wrote: post #37

I was never excited for automation. Automation doesn't mean we do less. It means that we do as much work, and now also the work has a higher complexity ceiling; you need to understand the systems that are being automated, and need to maintain the automation. More things are possible, but everything is more complex, and of course, you still need to work 40 hours a week. Products don't get better either, but that's mor…

> and then potentially your own skills stagnate as you rely on LLMs more and more.

I hear this so often these days and I quite do not understand this part. If I trust LLM do to "X" that means i have made a determination that LLM is top-notch with "X" (if I did not make this determination then letting LLMs do X would be lunacy) and henceforth I do not give a flying hoot to know "X" and if my "X" skills deteriorate it is same thing as when we got equipment to tend to our corn fields and my corn picking skills deteriorated. of course I am being facetious here but you get the point.

Re: AI is making us work more

#139

Post by ashanoko »

To be honest the self confidence of ai is rubbing off on the species in a good way. As in suddenly there is somebody there who beliefs in you, unlike that family that constantly sabotage you, the partner that tries to keep your ego in a "handleable due to absence of success" shape. And all those ideologies that want to cripple any one standing out, they can take a hike. So what if its confidently wrong, at least it beliefs more in you then the rest of the species.

Re: AI is making us work more

#140

Post by nonethewiser »

BeetleB wrote: post #120
everdrive wrote: post #37

I was never excited for automation. Automation doesn't mean we do less. It means that we do as much work, and now also the work has a higher complexity ceiling; you need to understand the systems that are being automated, and need to maintain the automation. More things are possible, but everything is more complex, and of course, you still need to work 40 hours a week. Products don't get better either, but that's mor…

My first engineering job was non-SW, and had a lot of manual work. I automated a lot of it. Yes, it led to more work. What would take half a day could now be done in an hour. So we now had to produce 4x more. I spent 4 years there automating left and right. Everyone silently hated me. One of the problems with my automation was that it allowed for more and more Q/A. And the more you check for quality issues, the more…

This is just the reality of scaling. Largely but not necessarily automation. Think of customer service now compared to early 2000s. Thats not really a story of automation. Instead, it's a story of 1) outsourcing 2) a bit of legitimate self service options (automation) and 3) abandonment - they simply stopped supporting at a good level. Quality is much worse but throughput is much higher - a necessary evil to scale.

AI actually has some ability to improve things. At least when I think about manufacturing and farming. When you produced at such a massive scale you could never individually inspect every potato, widget, or target every weed etc. You could produce WAAAY more but more bad products went out the door. But now you can inspect every individual thing. May not extend to every industry though.

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