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Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

fastcompany.com

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Re: Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

#191

Post by Our_Benefactors »

mrbungie wrote: post #51
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've used AI to do something that was a single command Yes, and that’s a good thing! This is in fact where a lot of AI value lies. You dont need to know that command anymore - knowing the functional contract is now sufficient to perform the requisite work duties. This is huge!

Once I learn a command that is both repeatable and useful, I prefer to either keep it in my mind or in my aliases. Thank you.

You can still do this! And AI will teach you that command far far faster than synthesizing it yourself.

Re: Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

#192

Post by Our_Benefactors »

malfist wrote: post #36
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've used AI to do something that was a single command Yes, and that’s a good thing! This is in fact where a lot of AI value lies. You dont need to know that command anymore - knowing the functional contract is now sufficient to perform the requisite work duties. This is huge!

Is it? If the LLMs change broke something do you know enough to fix it?

The same question can be applied to work without AI, so this isn’t a meaningful criticism

Re: Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

#193

Post by Our_Benefactors »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #40
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've used AI to do something that was a single command Yes, and that’s a good thing! This is in fact where a lot of AI value lies. You dont need to know that command anymore - knowing the functional contract is now sufficient to perform the requisite work duties. This is huge!

> You dont need to know that command anymore I find it hard to read "You can do things without knowing things" as a positive improvement in work, society, life, anywhere

You are the worst kind of gatekeeper, then! A true reactionary who believes they are righteous for impeding others!

Re: Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

#195

Post by crabbone »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

Not just Amazon, too. It feels like all of big tech (and some smaller firms) have simultaneously gone insane. Imagine if your CEO woke up one day and told the company: "We need to encourage travel spending. Please book as many business trips as you can, and spend as much money as possible. Fly first class to our satellite offices! Take limos instead of Ubers! Eat at fine restaurants! Make sure you are constantly trav…

You'd be surprised...

I worked for an international (mothership in the UK, later acquired by the US) company, which had... sort of a similar policy.

So, the (mothership) company acquired a lot of satellite companies, all in banking business. All over the world. Then they figured their CEO was corrupt, got in problems with the law, got kicked out. While they were waiting for the new "real" CEO to step in, they let some "interim" CEO to take his place.

New new (interim) CEO didn't seem to have a clue about the business she was supposed to run, nor did she care. She knew her time was running out, and she figured she'd spend it traveling the world and partaking in fine dining in every corner of the world the company's tentacle could reach. But, to make it seem more plausible, she, sort of, created a policy of "experience exchange", which sent random troupes of select individuals from different branches of the company to "exchange experience" with another similarly randomly assembled troupe. Of course, the company picked the bill when it comes to lodging and dining.

Our inconsequential branch in Israel saw a pilgrimage of high-ranking banking managers from all over the world, but, mostly the wealthier parts of it. Some didn't even bother to show up in the office though, and proceeded straight to the banquet hall of the most expensive hotel on the Tel Aviv beach.

To be fair though, the interim CEO got the boot even before her time was supposed to end, but it was serendipitously close to the acquisition by the US company, and so she was let go as part of a "restructuring" and "optimization"... but it was a crazy year!

Re: Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

#196

Post by Our_Benefactors »

miyoji wrote: post #37
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've used AI to do something that was a single command Yes, and that’s a good thing! This is in fact where a lot of AI value lies. You dont need to know that command anymore - knowing the functional contract is now sufficient to perform the requisite work duties. This is huge!

It's also several hundred times more expensive.

False! Labor is the most expensive input in creating software, not joules of energy. Using AI is far far cheaper than expecting workers to synthesize all knowledge themselves.

Re: Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

#197

Post by nukedindia »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #193
bluefirebrand wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You dont need to know that command anymore I find it hard to read "You can do things without knowing things" as a positive improvement in work, society, life, anywhere

You are the worst kind of gatekeeper, then! A true reactionary who believes they are righteous for impeding others!

[dead]

Re: Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

#199

Post by Our_Benefactors »

quikoa wrote: post #41
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've used AI to do something that was a single command Yes, and that’s a good thing! This is in fact where a lot of AI value lies. You dont need to know that command anymore - knowing the functional contract is now sufficient to perform the requisite work duties. This is huge!

I can't tell if this comment is sarcasm or not. If you let AI run commands you don't understand (especially in production) you may end up with some nasty surprises.

It’s not sarcastic at all. Using AI to accomplish things and fill in your knowledge gaps is literally the whole point of it. People are downvoting and salty because they thought the value in the job was in memorizing esoteric APIs (it never was)

Re: Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks

#200

Post by jmyeet »

malfist wrote: post #168
jmyeet wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like using lines of code as a metric to rank engineers [1]? Managers love metrics. Bad managers particularly love metrics. Tokens used was almost the obvious bad metric that was going to be used. I would argue that tokens used has actually exposed a useful metric: any manager who focused on this, demanded this or ranked based on this should be fired, for being a bad manager. [1]: https://evan-soohoo.medium.c…

In many many many cases it's not the manager choosing to do that. Its our brilliant job creator class demanding that he does

Bad manager: "I have to give you a bad rating because of the company-wide LoC metric."

Good manager (to good engineer): "can you please churn some code to update your LoC metric so I don't have to give you a worse rating?"

I'm sorry but any manager who just claims they're a passive victim of company-wide mandates is a lazy and bad manager.

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