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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

#221

Post by Arainach »

suttontom wrote: post #217
Arainach wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of value comes from things the customer doesn't care about. Customers want features as fast and as cheap as possible. I derive joy from solid test suites that avoid me getting paged while on call and team processes that don't allow config changes on Friday so pages don't happen on the weekend. Very few craftspeople derive their joy from the customer experience. An electrician isn't happy because their work all…

I wouldn't agree with that. The issue with software is that the people you make things for are usually anonymous and you'll never meet them, but if you've ever built software that helped someone and you witnessed it, it feels really good.

Meeting your customers feels good. It's still not why I do it. I've written components that were used by billions of people and generally loved (pieces of the Windows 7 taskbar) and talked to people about that work. I've worked in the education space and talked directly to the staff at schools who use my product to hear their use cases, thoughts, and feedback. It's fun, humbling, and rewarding. It's not what motivates me day to day.

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

#222

Post by dawnerd »

senordevnyc wrote: post #92
dawnerd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a problem with the tool not the people. AI is marketed literally as writing one sentence and having some app perfectly output. Just check any of the landing pages for Claude code or codex or GitHub copilot…

No, it literally isn't. I just looked at the landing pages for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot, and literally none of them have anything about "writing one sentence and having some app perfectly output", or anything remotely like that. In fact, just the opposite: they all make clear that they're built for ongoing collaboration with AI, and have detailed descriptions of what that looks like. No one advertising…

Right from the codex homepage in the first screenshot “Create a compelling launch hero for the new Codex app in openai.com/codex”

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

#223

Post by thedevilslawyer »

Arainach wrote: post #221
suttontom wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't agree with that. The issue with software is that the people you make things for are usually anonymous and you'll never meet them, but if you've ever built software that helped someone and you witnessed it, it feels really good.

Meeting your customers feels good. It's still not why I do it. I've written components that were used by billions of people and generally loved (pieces of the Windows 7 taskbar) and talked to people about that work. I've worked in the education space and talked directly to the staff at schools who use my product to hear their use cases, thoughts, and feedback. It's fun, humbling, and rewarding. It's not what motivate…

how are you navigating the AI wave? Those parts of the job are fully out, and the customer engagement/value are fully in.

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

#224

Post by thedevilslawyer »

tombot wrote: post #116
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 jobs they enjoy, programmers have somehow escaped this; better pay and more “protected” time instead of doing what the rest of us were doing all along

They did till 2025. Now more than half don't enjoy it as the technical puzzles/plumbing is gone. The outcome oriented folks find it fun (and amplified up).

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

#225

Post by lionkor »

chris_money202 wrote: post #127
lionkor wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still write code by hand. Just do that, you will run into tasks that are too boring, those you can do with an LLM.

I think a lot of developers who enjoy writing code are in an internal battle knowing they could write it themselves or AI could do it and probably do at same speed or many times faster. It's a contradiction as a developer because we always want to do whatever it is we are doing at the optimal speeds but we also like writing code. So, you're being forced to choose where you stand at a fundamental level.

Absolutely. And I'm saying that the fix is to decide to write code. The AI isn't faster at producing good quality, well designed code that you'd write (if you're quite competent, which anyone can become with practice).

The AI code generation speed is a lie, it doesn't get the same work done in less time, most of the time it gives you a different version. Thinking through the problem yourself can yield better results for the overall product, in my experience.

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

#226

Post by Arainach »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #223
Arainach wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meeting your customers feels good. It's still not why I do it. I've written components that were used by billions of people and generally loved (pieces of the Windows 7 taskbar) and talked to people about that work. I've worked in the education space and talked directly to the staff at schools who use my product to hear their use cases, thoughts, and feedback. It's fun, humbling, and rewarding. It's not what motivate…

how are you navigating the AI wave? Those parts of the job are fully out, and the customer engagement/value are fully in.

I don't agree with your statement. Individual productivity is very different from team productivity. AI is much like the traditional cowboy coder - prioritizing speed above all else leads to disaster.

As to customers, customers value stability. They don't want the UI changing every week, they don't want random changes of the data model that corrupt their content, and so the traditions of quality, strong testing and integration pipelines, and so on are just as important in established products - in some ways more important than ever, as there are plenty of opportunities for your competitors to burn user trust and drive them away.

I have yet to encounter an established product demonstrating a massive improvement in velocity due to AI. Being able to spit out prototypes doesn't matter all that much.

I'm handling the AI wave by holding on to my sanity and skills and working to establish a reputation in preparation for big paychecks fixing the messes everyone else is creating with their tokens.

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

#227

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

tarkin2 wrote: post #195
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Believing pride in ones work is important, a communist makes you not. And sweeping ideas away by categorising the idea is the destruction of debate.

Sorry, I was being provocative more than anything. I should've said nothing.

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

#228

Post by thedevilslawyer »

Arainach wrote: post #226
thedevilslawyer wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how are you navigating the AI wave? Those parts of the job are fully out, and the customer engagement/value are fully in.

I don't agree with your statement. Individual productivity is very different from team productivity. AI is much like the traditional cowboy coder - prioritizing speed above all else leads to disaster. As to customers, customers value stability. They don't want the UI changing every week, they don't want random changes of the data model that corrupt their content, and so the traditions of quality, strong testing and i…

I don't see any indication that's the world that's coming, and lot of opposing evidence. But perhaps it's a bet you're choosing :thumbs up: .

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

#229

Post by StefanBatory »

banannaise wrote: post #206
StefanBatory wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's going to give back the productivity gain and more, while also decreasing my quality of life. Unfortunately though, what does that matter? Your employer does not care how do you feel. You are paid to bring them benefits, they aren't running a charity. If you do feel down, that is your issue and you shouldn't let that influence how you work. Just to be clear, I don't like that either. But it is what it is.

Mental health is health. Negative mental health impacts are particularly significant when your job is to perform mental labor. It's not defiance, it's reality: if you drag down my motivation, that's going to drag down my productivity. I don't really have much active control over that.

But that's the point, employer doesn't care why you're sick, only that you are. You create "problems", you will get replaced.

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

#230

Post by senordevnyc »

dawnerd wrote: post #222
senordevnyc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it literally isn't. I just looked at the landing pages for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot, and literally none of them have anything about "writing one sentence and having some app perfectly output", or anything remotely like that. In fact, just the opposite: they all make clear that they're built for ongoing collaboration with AI, and have detailed descriptions of what that looks like. No one advertising…

Right from the codex homepage in the first screenshot “Create a compelling launch hero for the new Codex app in openai.com/codex”

Talk about moving the goalposts!
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