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AI-First Company Memos

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Re: AI-First Company Memos

#141

Post by coldpie »

sigseg1v wrote: post #139
floren wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twice now in this same story, different subthreads, I've seen AI dullards declaring that you, specifically, are holding it wrong. It's delightful, really.

"Hey boss, I tried to replace my screwdriver with this thing you said I have to use? Milwaukee or something? When I used it, it rammed the screw in so tight that it cracked the wood." ^ If someone says that they are definitely "holding it wrong", yes. If they used it more they would understand that you use the clutch ring to the appropriate setting to avoid this. What you don't do, is keep using the screwdriver while…

No need to be mean. It's not living up to the marketing (no surprise), but I am trying to find a way to use these things that doesn't suck. Not there yet, but I'll keep trying.

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#142

Post by agentultra »

LPisGood wrote: post #121
frizlab wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. It’s what I’ve come to realize. My job is probably safe, as long as I will be willing to adapt. I have still not even tried AI once, and don’t care for it, but I know at one point I probably will have to. I don’t actually think it’ll be a productivity boost the way I work. Code has never been the difficult part, but I’ll definitely have to show I have included AI in my workflow to be left alone. Oh well…

Why have you never even _tried_ it? It’s very easy to try and surely you are somewhat curious.

I've never had to try lots of things in order to know that I won't like them.

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#143

Post by agentultra »

RandallBrown wrote: post #135
charcircuit wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Other productivity boosters certainly didn't need such memos; they were naturally adopted because the benefits were unambiguous. This is simply not true. As a counter example consider debuggers. They are a big productivity boost, but it requires the user to change their development practice and learn a new tool. This makes adoption very hard. AI has a similar issue of being a new tool with a learning curve.

Did companies actually send out memos saying "We're going to be a company that uses debuggers!" I would have just thought that people using them would quickly outpace the people that weren't and the people falling behind would adapt or die.

Do they have to die though? I know some folks that use them and others who don't. They both seem to get along fine.

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#144

Post by SkyPuncher »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #10

Whatever happened to "show, don't tell"? Other productivity boosters certainly didn't need such memos; they were naturally adopted because the benefits were unambiguous. There were no "IDE-first company memos" or "software framework-first company memos"; devs organically picked these up because the productivity gains were immediately self-evident.

That doesn't work in an environment where there are compliance and regulatory controls.

In most companies, you can't just pick up random new tools (especially ones that send data to third parties). The telling part is giving internal safety to use these tools.

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#145

Post by charcircuit »

RandallBrown wrote: post #135
charcircuit wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Other productivity boosters certainly didn't need such memos; they were naturally adopted because the benefits were unambiguous. This is simply not true. As a counter example consider debuggers. They are a big productivity boost, but it requires the user to change their development practice and learn a new tool. This makes adoption very hard. AI has a similar issue of being a new tool with a learning curve.

Did companies actually send out memos saying "We're going to be a company that uses debuggers!" I would have just thought that people using them would quickly outpace the people that weren't and the people falling behind would adapt or die.

>Did companies actually send out memos saying "We're going to be a company that uses debuggers!"

I could believe it. Especially if there are big licensing costs for the debuggers.

>the people falling behind would adapt or die.

It is better to educate people, make them more efficient, and avoid having them die. Having employees die is expensive for the company.

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#146

Post by g947o »

Rover222 wrote: post #22
upupupandaway wrote: post #6

I work for a large tech company, and our CTO has just released a memo with a new rubric for SDEs that includes "AI Fluency". We also have a dashboard with AI Adoption per developer, that is being used to surveil the teams lagging on the topic. All very depressing. A friend of mine is an engineer of a large pre-IPO startup, and their VP of AI just demanded every single employee needs to create an agent using Claude. T…

I mean get onboard or fall behind, that's the situation we're all in. It can also be exciting. If you think it's still just slop and errors when managed by experienced devs, you're already behind.

Anyone with more than 2 years of professional software engineering experience can tell this is completely nonsense.

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#147

Post by SkyPuncher »

upupupandaway wrote: post #6

I work for a large tech company, and our CTO has just released a memo with a new rubric for SDEs that includes "AI Fluency". We also have a dashboard with AI Adoption per developer, that is being used to surveil the teams lagging on the topic. All very depressing. A friend of mine is an engineer of a large pre-IPO startup, and their VP of AI just demanded every single employee needs to create an agent using Claude. T…

I'm so happy I work at a sane company. We're pushing the limits of AI and everyone sees the value, but we also see the danger/risks.

I'm at the forefront of agentic tooling use, but also know that I'm working in uncharted territory. I have the skills to use it safely and securely, but not everyone does.

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#148

Post by [deleted] »

gtowey wrote: post #66
upupupandaway wrote: post #6

I work for a large tech company, and our CTO has just released a memo with a new rubric for SDEs that includes "AI Fluency". We also have a dashboard with AI Adoption per developer, that is being used to surveil the teams lagging on the topic. All very depressing. A friend of mine is an engineer of a large pre-IPO startup, and their VP of AI just demanded every single employee needs to create an agent using Claude. T…

Leadership loves AI more than anything they have ever loved before. It's because for them, the fawning, sycophantic, ego-stroking agents who cheerfully champions every dumb idea they have and helps them realize it with spectacular averageness, is EXACTLY what they've always expected to receive from their employees.

[deleted]

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#149

Post by agentultra »

asa400 wrote: post #102
steveBK123 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely the norm across corporate America right now. Chief AI Czars enforcing AI usage metrics with mandatory AI training for anyone that isn't complying. People with roles nowhere near software/tech/data are being asked about their AI usage in their self-assessment/annual review process, etc. It's deeply fascinating psychologically and I'm not sure where this ends. I've never seen any tech theme pushed to…

> I've never seen any tech theme pushed top down so hard in 20+ years working. > The common theme is C-suite thinks it will save money and their competitors already figured out out, so they are FOMOing at the mouth about catching up on the savings. I concur 100%. This is a monkey-see-monkey-do FOMO mania, and it's driven by the C-suite, not rank-and-file. I've never seen anything like it. Other sticky "productivity m…

And telling us how to do our jobs. As if they've ever compared the optimized output of clang and gcc on an example program to track down a performance regression at 2AM.

Re: AI-First Company Memos

#150

Post by basket_horse »

goatlover wrote: post #103
chung8123 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is investor sentiment and FOMO. If your investors feel like AI is the answer you will need to start using AI. I am not as negative on AI as the rest of the group here though. I think AI first companies will out pace companies that never start to learn the AI muscle. From my prospective these memos mostly seem reasonable.

If AI is the answer, then there's no reason for a top-down mandate like this. People will just start using as they see fit because it helps them do their jobs better, instead of it being forced on them, which doesn't sound much like AI is the answer investors thought it was.

No, because as discussed AI also changes the nature of your job in a way that might be negative to a worker, even if it’s more productive. Ie, it may be more fun to ride a horse to your friends house, but it’s not faster than a car. Or as the previous example, it may be more enjoyable to make a shoe by hand, but it’s less productive than using an assembly line
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