Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never had to try lots of things in order to know that I won't like them.
Yeah but the cost of trying it is like 3 minutes of your time. Have you no curiosity?
Not for this, no.
AI-First Company Memos
181–190 of 216 posts
Re: AI-First Company Memos
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand how all these companies issue these sorts of policies in lock-step with each other. The same happened with "Return To Office". All of a sudden every company decided to kill work from home within the same week or so. Is there some secret CEO cabal that meets on a remote island somewhere to coordinate what they're going to all make workers do next?
It's extremely human behavior. We all do it to some degree or another. The incentives work like this: - If all your peers are doing it and you do it and it doesn't work, it's not your fault, because all your peers were doing it too. "Who could have known? Everyone was doing it." - If all your peers _aren't_ doing it and you do it and it doesn't work, it's your fault alone, and your board and shareholders crucify you.…
Agreed about peer following conservatism as well re: RTO. What is interesting though is how few of these supposedly meritocratic winners fail to have any level 2 thinking.
CTO friend at what you might call a smaller tier 2/tier 3 shop told me about some recent C-suite debates. CEO/COO types concerned that "the office is too empty". One notes that "our compensation costs are very high" and "maybe if we made everyone RTO, productivity would be higher and we wouldn't need as many developers".
One could just as easily & more logically argue - you are a smaller shop that pays less than market, your flexibility re: remote is a "free" benefit you can offer to get senior talent that might not otherwise be able to attract. Enforcing the same RTO as your higher paying and larger competitors opens you up to adverse selection your best talent trading up.
Of course telling your peers that your firm is a scrub is a different challenge.
Re: AI-First Company Memos
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno. At some point the people who make these tools will have to turn a profit, and I suspect we'll find out that 98% of the AI industry is swimming naked.
Yeah I think it'll consolidate around one or two players. Mostly likely Xai, even though they're behind at the moment. No one can compete with the orbital infrastructure, if that works out. Big if. That's all a different topic. But I feel you, part of me wants to quit too, but can't afford that yet.
I'm sorry but if you are taking orbital datacenters seriously in the same posts as boosting AI, it's hard not to discount your takes on AI severely.
Re: AI-First Company Memos
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why wouldn't HFT be disrupted by AI? AI-enhanced trading algo designs are likely to be competitive? AI disrupts everything on the computer from the low-end on up. The higher end requires more expensive or custom models that aren't as easy to obtain yet.
HFT is about the last technical domain that could possibly be touched by LLMs. There is next to no good training data and there is zero margin for error.
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Re: AI-First Company Memos
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Think about the Industrial Age transition from individual craftspeople working on small shops using hand tools to make things into working in factories on large-scale assembly lines. The latter is wildly more productive than the former. If you owned a business that employed a bunch of cobblers, then moving them all out of their little shops into one big factory where they can produce 100x as many shoes means you just…
The industrial revolution was extremely hard on individual craftspeople. Jobs became lower paying and lower skilled. People were forced to move into cities. Conditions didn't improve for decades. If AI is anything comparable it's not going to get better in 5-10 years. It will be decades before the new 'jobs' come into place.
Seriously, it took nearly ~150 years before the people actually benefited from the industrial revolution. Saying that we need to condemn two lifetimes worth of suffering to benefit literally a few thousand people out of billions is absolutely ludicrous.
Re: AI-First Company Memos
#186Whatever 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.
Think about the Industrial Age transition from individual craftspeople working on small shops using hand tools to make things into working in factories on large-scale assembly lines. The latter is wildly more productive than the former. If you owned a business that employed a bunch of cobblers, then moving them all out of their little shops into one big factory where they can produce 100x as many shoes means you just…
Agree with every word.
> Of course AI is a top-down mandate. For people who enjoy reading and writing code themselves and find spending their day corralling AI agents to be a less enjoyable job, then the CEO has basically given them a giant benefits cut with zero compensation in return.
This should be a disclaimer every time someone at work forces you to use AI.
Interesting how when WFH became "the norm" during COVID, there were thousands of apologists arguing that employees suddenly received perks for nothing. Where are all of you now? Why aren't you arguing against employer doing a fucking rug pull?
Re: AI-First Company Memos
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
The industrial revolution was extremely hard on individual craftspeople. Jobs became lower paying and lower skilled. People were forced to move into cities. Conditions didn't improve for decades. If AI is anything comparable it's not going to get better in 5-10 years. It will be decades before the new 'jobs' come into place.
Seriously, it took nearly ~150 years before the people actually benefited from the industrial revolution. Saying that we need to condemn two lifetimes worth of suffering to benefit literally a few thousand people out of billions is absolutely ludicrous.
But think about corporate aristocracy and their children!
Re: AI-First Company Memos
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Think about the Industrial Age transition from individual craftspeople working on small shops using hand tools to make things into working in factories on large-scale assembly lines. The latter is wildly more productive than the former. If you owned a business that employed a bunch of cobblers, then moving them all out of their little shops into one big factory where they can produce 100x as many shoes means you just…
Unfortunately, I would expect the boss to say, "hey, since you're all going to be so much more productive working in the factory, we'll give you all 10x the shoes to repair".
The reward for working hard is more hard work.
Re: AI-First Company Memos
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employees also make for customers. Not sure how AIs and robots will be replacing human consumers once CEOs realize their dream.
This often confuses me as well. If no one has a job, no one can buy any goods or services. Then who will these companies that replaced all jobs with AI sell to? The AIs?
The CEOs are concerned about their company. They are not worried about employing every consumer of their product.
Re: AI-First Company Memos
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
AI adoption is a bottom-up decision at the level of the individual worker. Converting an entire factory is a top-down decision. No single worker can individually decide to start using electricity instead of steam power, but individuals can choose whether/how to use AI or any other individual-level tool.
> AI adoption is a bottom-up decision at the level of the individual worker. Ah, but that is the question, isn't it. Is it bottom up or top down?
I think they're saying it should logically be a bottoms-uo initiative, since it's the rank and file that use it day in, day out, but instead it's top-down because we're in a massive bubble