Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 450 posts

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

#251

Post by morkalork »

0xy wrote: post #147
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s honestly 10x worse than LOC. At least in the human era LOC had correlation to shipping features. It’s more like bragging about compiler cycles spent.

I don't know where you're working but LLM enhanced development has skyrocketed our rate of feature development. As an example, a project roadmapped to take 7 months was delivered in only 4.5 because of CC/Codex. I'm confused how anyone could believe it isn't an enhancer, unless they have refused to use any of the technologies.

You're measuring success with time to delivery, that's a reasonable metric. Same with volume of features shipped. Also good. LoC or tokens burned... not so much.

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

#252

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#253

Post by jjulius »

drstewart wrote: post #232
rdedev wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now there are state govts bending over backwards to provide cheap energy for data centers. The difference is being paid by people who live nearby through increased electricity costs. This is a tax with just extra steps

Shit, the government providing infrastructure in response to public demand? Outrageous use of taxes!

Your sarcastic comment mistakes "public demand" for what is actually private sector demand.

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

#254

Post by habosa »

They invented a product that has no possible cost control: you don't know how much you've used until you've used it. And then we somehow made it a virtue to use as much as possible. I can't think of a more effective money printing factory.

I wonder when we'll see our first "My startup went bankrupt on AI use" post. Amazon is being dumb but at least they can afford it.

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

#255

Post by jazz9k »

darth_avocado wrote: post #135
isk517 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some that was told to try and use AI more on the job so they created some agent to just burn tokens and ended up using about 10x what the next highest employee used. Buddy expected to get shit but instead got an accolade and was asked to give a short talk to the other employees about how they could match their success.

In my first job ever, I used to get my work done on time and leave. There were a few people who’d stay in the office until late and show up on weekends. Same output, but they got the promotions and my bonus got prorated. This is the same thing.

While output may have been part of it. It's possible that by staying later (and working longer), they had better relationships with upper management.

"I used to get my work done on time and leave"

This sounds like you just wanted to get your work done and not foster any work relationships. This is fine, but you will not get promoted this way (as you've seen).

Moving up in a company is 30% work and 70% networking/being likelable/noticed.

I stopped that nonsense years ago. I work for myself now as a consultant. If I work more, I get paid more.

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

#256

Post by bluefirebrand »

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!

I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic. I hope so.

It's hard to tell anymore because I have encountered people who genuinely do seem to think that disliking AI is gatekeeping somehow

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

#257

Post by recursivecaveat »

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…

Management has confided in me that token usage is a secret performance metric. At the same time I'm getting emails from infrastructure people about prompting techniques to get LLMs to speak more concisely to save the company money lmao. I'd prefer a video essay mode that bulks everything up.

Two years ago everyone would have told you that 'impact' was the way to measure people, and been aghast at tracking inputs like hours. Say what you will, but at least showing up at 8 didn't cost the company money. Today I see people spending time and money vibe coding tools in search of a problem, just to spend tokens and demonstrate that they're on board with the singularity.

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

#258

Post by ascagnel_ »

runako wrote: post #201
mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've never seen this level of perverse incentive, you have been lucky. The creation of and subsequent exploitation of them aren't new. For pre computer examples: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-2/

I can't find the reference right now, but I remember reading literature about studies done at large programming organizations (like IBM, government) who used LOCs as a performance metric. Programmers could earn more money by including more lines of code in their work. This went exactly the way you'd expect. Edit: I think it may have been from Capers Jones's _Programming Productivity_[1]. Published in 1986, based on r…

And then there was Bill Atkinson.

https://www.folklore.org/Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.html

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

#259

Post by phainopepla2 »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #117
dominotw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i call BS on this story

If you've never seen this level of perverse incentive, you have been lucky. The creation of and subsequent exploitation of them aren't new. For pre computer examples: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-2/

While it is good story for illustrating perverse incentives, there is no good historical evidence that the cobra bounty program actually existed.

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

#260

Post by idle_zealot »

bonesss wrote: post #224
isk517 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some that was told to try and use AI more on the job so they created some agent to just burn tokens and ended up using about 10x what the next highest employee used. Buddy expected to get shit but instead got an accolade and was asked to give a short talk to the other employees about how they could match their success.

That’s the part I don’t get: Engineers are smart enough to ask an LLM to ask other LLMs to ask other LLMs to load the policy manual then count the R’s in “ LLM fork bomb ”. Additional story points completed per week, versus token-dollar spent, or some such combo would seem more sane. But maybe they aren’t really tracking productivity, so tracking tokens is all they have? … I dunno which part of that is dumber.

We never figured out how to track productivity anyway. Only macro-level success in achieving measurable goals. Any AI metric besides "are similar goals being met more quickly" is people encouraging specific behaviors decided a priori.
Post reply on HN