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

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

#351

Post by jimbokun »

syntheticnature wrote: post #102
andrethegiant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bragging about token usage is like bragging about LoC written.

When I was at Amazon last year, the bragging (from the AI poo-bah in my section of Amazon, note) about AI included "look at the total line count of commits from the heaviest AI users!" So if AI screws something up and re-writes it and then screws it up again, needing another re-write, that counted as more positive than if it was done correctly, and simply, the first time.

This is like when the Pointy Haired Boss offers a bounty for fixing bugs and Wally pumps his fist and says “I’m gonna go code myself a Porsche!”

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

#352

Post by jimbokun »

andai wrote: post #62
andrethegiant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bragging about token usage is like bragging about LoC written.

Obligatory: Negative 2000 Lines of Code https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44381252

Timeless classic.

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

#353

Post by jimbokun »

svachalek wrote: post #159
xp84 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as a very happy NVDA shareholder I agree with you. It's comical that managers are being so naïve as to think that you can crap out a dashboard of "tokens consumed per week" and get any useful signal at all from it, beyond learning who's not using AI. Incompetent use of a coding agent, or just general shenanigans, can burn tokens all day but it's not going to get tickets done. Just looking at the work output - ho…

All those numbers are equally gameable and terrible metrics for productivity. With any of those, as with AI spending, you've got to look at actual results qualitatively. There's no shortcut.

The eternal evergreen lesson of managing software developers, and knowledge workers more generally.

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

#354

Post by jimbokun »

dkarl wrote: post #121
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…

I kind of get what they're thinking in trying to make sure all engineers use AI. For myself, and for the engineers working with me, I saw everyone go through an initial aversion and resistance to AI, and then an instant productivity boost when we started using them. So there's definitely a good reason to get everybody to start using AI. You don't want a good engineer resisting AI indefinitely if you know it will make…

Yeah management should make clear they just don’t want to see AI use of zero in a given week. Not “more tokens consumed the better“ on performance reviews.

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

#355

Post by saxelsen »

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.

Yes but companies would love for a robot to be able to do it instead.

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

#356

Post by da768 »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #286
mjr00 wrote: post #24

I've heard similar stories from AWS and other non-AWS FAANG employees. All of the token leaderboards have a "this doesn't count toward your performance review" disclaimer, but there's an implied nudge nudge, wink wink after that statement. One person I've talked to has someone in their org who is running GasTown and chews through tokens 24/7. They don't contribute very much, but they're comfortably in the #1 spot.

Yeah my manager at my 400 people company is one of those. He runs gas town and his agents bump things here and there throughout the codebase and he has like 50 commits a day. Compat versions, formatting, stuff like that. But the thing is, the problem is the person, not the technology. He was already like this before LLMs. He would "refactor" repos into smaller repos, and all of a sudden all of the code has his name.…

He's building his GitHub resume

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

#357

Post by crote »

philipallstar wrote: post #311
krupan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure this isn't being funded by our taxes? How many data centers are being built in areas where they have been given a huge tax break? How many banks are loaning money for AI infrastructure knowing that they'll be bailed out by taxpayers if they fail?

A tax break isn't funding. Saying we'll take slightly less of your money is not giving money. Either way, I don't know what this has to do with Amazon getting workers to use AI more, which is what my comment was addressing.

You're forgetting that taxes pay for government services, and those corporations consume government services as well. Give them a big enough tax break and it'll end up at a net negative.

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

#358

Post by proteal »

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…

What if instead the manager was saying: “hey team I need you to all buy as many lotto tickets as possible!”

I feel like that’s a better analogy. Some charlatans are buying fake tickets, but as a manager who wants to win big, I’m ok with some chicanery so long as the average person is trying to honestly meet my directive.

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

#359

Post by powersjcb »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #274

Here I am wishing my employer would give me any AI modestly. I do more in my time off, with higher quality (in terms of how much I build, I don't like to just spit out features mindlessly and endlessly) due to the ability to plan things out more, and have a wealth of knowledge to help me poke holes and find things that make sense that I have not thought of, or even bypass limitations I thought would block me forever.

We can only dream

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

#360

Post by andrekandre »

jimbokun wrote: post #346
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.

We need an Office Space 2 just about AI shenanigans.

office space 2... i need this injected into my veins right now lol
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