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I'm Tired of Talking to AI

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Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#321

Post by jvanderbot »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #230
jvanderbot wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I hate about this whole thing, is that there are many reasons someone might reach out to a coworker with questions. Not all require the knowledge in fancy markdown with emojis. Maybe they want to show respect to a person by asking their opinion before proceeding with a change Maybe they want to share context and make that person aware of what they're thinking without being so obvious Maybe they need _that person…

I’m pretty sure the amount of care for fellow coworkers is normally distributed… so it makes sense the way below average just do that. Heck the bottom decile would probably directly tell folks to pound sand if they could get away with it.

But "Go away I'm a curmudgeon" is an honest signal. Honest signals are required for a trust-based workplace. Whether you want a person to be a curmudgeon at work aside, knowing what they really are like and what they will do when you need something is foundational for trust.

AI washes that away. Everyone replies with AI voice, so nobody replies with honest signals, not the good / helpful folks or the curmudgeon unhelpful ones.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#322

Post by scotty79 »

AI is a new medium. It's used and going to be used for everything. Including communication.

More and more people won't be talking directly but use AI for their messages. AI writing style is inconvenient for reading directly. So you need to have your own AI that helps you interface with the world including other people. To read messages from them and provide you with the best possible translation on it into text that is easy to read for you and contains the information relevant to your interests.

About a week ago I got frustrated with news "algorithms" serving me this and that. I vibecoded for myself AI powered app that pulls news from dozens of source in topics that interests then reads them all and for purposes of ranking them according to my preferences, creates a short summary of the main content of the news item. It also inspects the article and the title and if the tile is even mildly clickbaity it extracts the answer to the clickbait and provides it right along the title so I don't have to dig for it. I can also indicate my interest with upvoting and downvoting news pieces on the scale of -2..+2

When I browsed my custom newsfeed I noticed that for most articles I don't even need to click the link because AI summary contains exactly the information that I'd like to get from this article.

If I had a problem with receiving AI crafted messages from some people I'd put automatic AI filter between them and me in a blink of an eye. You don't even need frontier models for this. Gemma4 running on my laptop, with the correct prompt (written and tuned completely by Codex) does a great job with extracting information from the news. It should suffice for translating communication.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#323

Post by dapperdrake »

bombcar wrote: post #246
sschueller wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but how many times have people sent someone "let me google that for you". Some people are inherently lazy and unload their laziness to someone else to do the thinking for them. I still think sending someone an AI answer is terrible but then again, if you are going to ask me for help, at least make some effort first. EDIT: By laziness I mean that there are known places (they know of) with documentation that cover…

90% of the time I ask a question of a coworker that could be googled or clauded what I’m actually asking for is their confirmation that they agree with the answer. So use the AI, but at least read the reply and/or reword it so it’s clear that you agree.

So, just a fake "yes"?

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#325

Post by throwaway613746 »

sinsudo wrote: post #248

As a non-native speaker, I cope with language barriers. To overcome those barriers, it is tempting to use an LLM to help you with unknown words or expressions. But the use of LLMs may change your original intention. The LLM may flatten, cut corners, or expand what you did not want expanded. Hence, the focus of the message and the spark in the original thought are both destroyed. It is saddening to be linguistically l…

[dead]

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#326

Post by cjs_ac »

p2detar wrote: post #17

> I worked as a developer at a company. I asked the business owner a question about a business task. He sent me a ChatGPT screenshot with the answer. I replied that it had nothing to do with my question and everything there was wrong. A minute later he sent me another ChatGPT screenshot. He didn’t even read the AI’s answer. That's just rude and borderline psychotic behavior. It's still a bit better at my workplace bu…

Just before LLMs became available to the general public, I worked for a small (fewer than ten employees) strategy consultancy. They had some industry-specific analysis tools that were in Excel, and my job was to turn them into a software product that customers could operate themselves. The owner had a mechanical engineering degree, but every time I asked him a technical question about the tools, he'd just give me a sales pitch for the thing I was trying to build for him. He was always pitching for new business, and seemed to struggle to get out of 'sales mode'. I have no doubt that if I were working for him now, he'd be pointing me to an LLM in response to any question.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#327

Post by dapperdrake »

strken wrote: post #311
sdoering wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people are inherently lazy and unload their laziness to someone else to do the thinking for them. Exactly this. I am not willign to be the "can you google this for me" person to anybody's laziness. And when I get a BS request, I just screenshot that, put it in a chat interface, have the bot slop out a reply and paste it back. If they try a DOS attack on my time and sanity, I can reciprocate. If they want a hum…

Can you not say "sorry but I think you should try Claude first" and send the slop next? If someone treated me like that I'd either look for a new job, walk to their desk and do conflict management, or try to work out how I'd offended them. Maybe this is a problem at huge companies.

"conflict management" before "try to work out how I'd offended them."

Let me Claude that for you.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#328

Post by Uncle_Brumpus »

jiaosdjf wrote: post #185
torben-friis wrote: post #60

>But even when I talk to people, they forward my questions to AI and send me the AI’s answer. This is the killer issue. It's so profoundly saddenning, it feels like watching an adult being asked a question and calling mom to answer for them. There is something deeply disturbing in it that makes me feel I'm not talking to a self sufficient entity.

It feels like commoditising intelligence because they think an AI screenshot is some kind of currency of truth. The truth doesn't even really matter anymore, its just whatever ChatGPT says it is

I had to sit through a ~45 minute meeting once where an electrician and his boss sat and presented literal chat screenshots to justify their positions opposing or agreeing with a repair I requested.

I had specified some high-temperature electrical components to repair a broken part of a high-temperature circuit, placed the PO, received the parts, and gave them to one of our electricians with a work order. I did the research myself sans AI, read data sheets, investigated alternative materials, etc.

The electrician asked chatgpt "Will PEEK shrink tubing survive 400*F?" because apparently he doesn't trust me, and chatGPT told him no. He complained to his boss who immediately asked chatGPT the same question, and it told him yes it was fine.

Squarely within the top 3 most exhausting meetings of my career.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#329

Post by scotty79 »

dominotw wrote: post #251
mittensc wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your comment a bit funny > Try prompting Claude to fix an arbitrary code base better than someone who knows it, when you're a random non-technical person. I've seen people employed working on some code bases that couldn't code at all. > Try prompting Claude for legal advice and getting as good of results as Lawyer would if you're a layperson. Some lawyers are downright incompetent and don't know what they're t…

ai good cos some ppl bad.

AI good cos vastly better than most people at most verbal tasks.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#330

Post by jvanderbot »

sschueller wrote: post #127
torben-friis wrote: post #60

>But even when I talk to people, they forward my questions to AI and send me the AI’s answer. This is the killer issue. It's so profoundly saddenning, it feels like watching an adult being asked a question and calling mom to answer for them. There is something deeply disturbing in it that makes me feel I'm not talking to a self sufficient entity.

True but how many times have people sent someone "let me google that for you". Some people are inherently lazy and unload their laziness to someone else to do the thinking for them. I still think sending someone an AI answer is terrible but then again, if you are going to ask me for help, at least make some effort first. EDIT: By laziness I mean that there are known places (they know of) with documentation that cover…

Tip: The best coworker I ever worked with had the name of a famous italian pop star and worked at JPL and yes this is a roundabout endorsement.

He would _always_ say "Let's find out together", and then proceed to find the answer in front of me, doing effectively LMGTFY but in a way that was extremely more helpful (by watching his workflow and allowing questions) and empathetic (by taking time politely and starting from what I knew, not what he knew).

It got me the information, AND it taught me to do something AND it helped me trust this person.

Everyone should be like this guy, regardless of the availability of AI.

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