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Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

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Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#141

Post by jgil »

lionkor wrote: post #78

You pay per token, even on subscription models the limit is tokens. If I was valued at 1 trillion dollars, and I was in the hole enough to sink a couple small countries' GDP, maybe I would slowly start to optimize to maximize token usage. I want to sell tokens, how do I sell more tokens? Not by doing the same work in less tokens, that's for sure. This is like if you pay me by the hour and then excitedly tell me that…

Anthropic just said they're going to limit the ability of the new model to assist with building foundational models.

The ability to assess the user's goal and tune the inference accordingly is there. So, what methods are there to tell if a provider has their thumb on the scale?

Plodding along a longer path to the same goal would burn more tokens without necessarily a decrease in solution quality. Maybe a few more docs.

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#142

Post by alex_suzuki »

rozap wrote: post #20
reluctant_dev wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our product lead/manager recently sent me an AI generated PRD (complete with a Claude Code spec!) to build a core feature which we have had for over 2 years (and is a highly used core feature by our customers). I just can't imagine tanking my trust with my coworkers by doing something like that.

So we're now in this world where everyone is instantly 10x more productive at turning their thoughts into code. Now, think about the coworkers you've had that are middling to mediocre. Do you want them to have a tool that makes them 10x more productive? That's what I wonder about, what happens to all those folks.

In the worst case it’s an even greater “productivity” boost for those mediocre folks, as they will also undoubtedly be less critical of its output.

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#143

Post by sanderjd »

ge96 wrote: post #65
banannaise wrote: post #39

This really hit home for me: In some cases, workers are also being asked to automate the parts of their jobs they enjoy most, Hinds said on the podcast, pointing to customer-service employees who enjoy building relationships but are increasingly expected to supervise AI agents instead. "That's what gives you joy and meaning at work," she said. "That is very dangerous." What's a 20% productivity gain if I constantly f…

When I was given a semi-ultimatum "use AI or get fired" kind of thing for writing code I had a brief bout of depression/sadness. Whereas my friend doesn't care/says "I get paid to not work". I have gotten past it, now I'm just like, I'll do what I need to do to get paid since unfortunately I'm in a lot of debt so I need this job. I learned to code in 2013 so I like typing the code myself but now it seems like a waste…

I was exactly this way ... maybe a year or so ago.

But honestly I've stopped being excited to type out code in my personal projects anymore either. I've become much more excited by what I can accomplish on my own in a small number of hours squeezed between work and family. I still experience this as a loss, but I'm no longer so sad about it, and moreso feel invigorated by the possibilities and opportunities that have been opened up.

A way that I have come to think about this is: I used to always be curious about the product management role. How exciting to come up with ideas and validate them with users. But I always demurred because it would be so frustrating to have to rely on other people to bring those ideas to fruition! On balance, I always preferred being the one executing ideas to being the one generating and validating them. But now I can properly do both things! (In my hobby time, that is, at work we still have this idea/execution split, at least for the time being.)

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#144

Post by stvltvs »

SoftTalker wrote: post #118
ge96 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was given a semi-ultimatum "use AI or get fired" kind of thing for writing code I had a brief bout of depression/sadness. Whereas my friend doesn't care/says "I get paid to not work". I have gotten past it, now I'm just like, I'll do what I need to do to get paid since unfortunately I'm in a lot of debt so I need this job. I learned to code in 2013 so I like typing the code myself but now it seems like a waste…

If you're anything like me, and you stay in a coding/dev/IC track for your career because you like the work, you will eventually hit a point where you start thinking it's all meaningless. This happened before AI for me, but AI certainly reinforces it. You come to a point where you realize that you're not doing anything that creative, or nothing you haven't done hundreds of times before, maybe every few years you swit…

>you look back and see that almost nothing you've built is still in use, or will be for very long after you're gone.

Software development has more in common with agriculture than architecture. The code always needs maintenance.

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#145

Post by kstenerud »

jayd16 wrote: post #89
kstenerud wrote: post #15

I've found that setting good guardrails, and running in a sandbox so that the agent doesn't keep asking tedious permission questions, makes things go a LOT smoother. Generally, I spend anywhere between 15 mins and an hour setting things up (depending on how well the project is set up for AI work), and then set the agent going, coming back in a half-hour to an hour to check its progress. Generally, the tooling keeps i…

How often are you going into new projects and spending up to an hour on set up? I'm really just asking to get a sense of what "Generally" means here.

I do it with every project I go into. First step is setting up the documentation so that the agent can navigate it quickly, knows the idioms, knows the test gating procedure, design principles, coding standards, testing policies, etc.

Once that's set up, I spend time laying out the planning for whatever feature or fix is being worked on. For fixes the agent is pretty quick and usually needs little guidance. For new features it's best to have more of a hand on the tiller.

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#146

Post by YorgishBorg »

banannaise wrote: post #39

This really hit home for me: In some cases, workers are also being asked to automate the parts of their jobs they enjoy most, Hinds said on the podcast, pointing to customer-service employees who enjoy building relationships but are increasingly expected to supervise AI agents instead. "That's what gives you joy and meaning at work," she said. "That is very dangerous." What's a 20% productivity gain if I constantly f…

[dead]

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#147

Post by therealdrag0 »

parpfish wrote: post #24

i've seen a number of articles claiming things like "devs self report they'er +x% more productive with AI, but actually they're -y% LESS efficient!". and i think that this is explanation for why. as a boss (or researcher) i'm going to measure productivity based on amount of output per hour that i'm paying you; as a workers, i'm going to measure productivity based on amount of output relative to the amount of effort i…

Do you have any studies in the last 6 months showing performance decreases?

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#148

Post by wang_li »

hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #77
mullingitover wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> customer-service employees who enjoy building relationships but are increasingly expected to supervise AI agents instead. It sucks for the employees, otoh it might be the only way we're going to beat Baumol's Cost Disease. In the past few decades productivity has exploded, but service employees have largely failed to increase productivity in any way because it's harder to automate these tasks. It's the reason the c…

As a former first responder, I'm interested in hearing more about how AI-powered ambulance services would work. (related question: will the 911 dispatchers be AI?)

As a person who drives on a daily basis, I want to know why we don't have AI controlled stop lights and overall traffic control.

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#149

Post by arcatech »

krapp wrote: post #70
banannaise wrote: post #39

This really hit home for me: In some cases, workers are also being asked to automate the parts of their jobs they enjoy most, Hinds said on the podcast, pointing to customer-service employees who enjoy building relationships but are increasingly expected to supervise AI agents instead. "That's what gives you joy and meaning at work," she said. "That is very dangerous." What's a 20% productivity gain if I constantly f…

Most people don't have the luxury of finding joy and meaning in their work. You aren't hired to have fun, you're hired to create value and wealth for your employer. Just do what literally everyone else does and grind through it until you get a pension and hope it's enough to let you die with a bit of dignity.

That is definitely not what everybody else does. Some people try harder to find the things that they enjoy doing that provide value to others.

Re: Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

#150

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

tarkin2 wrote: post #105

I theorise that many social ills come from workers having less pride in their skills and achievements, and a greater sense of social alienation, due to automation. If you spend countless hours at work, and you partially define yourself by your work, and you realise you are easily replaceable then I cannot imagine this comes without mass social malaise that manifests itself elsewhere. When you know you're essentially…

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