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Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

nytimes.com

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Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#381

Post by philipswood »

dodu_ wrote: post #354
trollbridge wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can use LLMs to parse LLM-generated slop. They make nice summaries. I have taken this approach to people who send me obviously generated LLM text; I simply run it through an LLM, paste the summary, and ask them "Is this an accurate summary?" and then I ask the for their original prompt.

Ah yes, take my single sentence, blow it up to 3 paragraphs with LLMs, and then the person reading it can have an LLM summarize it in a single sentence. What the fuck are we even doing anymore?

He's describing a 4 step process:

1) >I simply run it through an LLM,

2) >paste the summary,

3) >and ask them "Is this an accurate summary?"

4) >and then I ask the for their original prompt.

Agreed that just step 1 or step 1 and 2 would be depressingly pointless, but step 3 and 4 make this the equivalent of sending someone a let-me-google-that-for-you kind of link, does it not?

Caught out like this I imagine many people will kind of get the fact that you'd rather have their direct inputs..

(Or just get mad at you, but that's fair I guess)

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#382

Post by torton »

menloshark wrote: post #344
voidfunc wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im joining meta for the total comp not because I give a shit about the company or products. Same as every company.

The total comp is a lie because the average tenure is Just one suggestion: don't stop interviewing and be very observant of whatever team you land in, be ready to jump ship if there are too many red flags. Also don't trust any of the managers. Don't take anything people say at face value. Be very discerning in team matching, where you land determines everything. You might be thinking "oh if I just work 7 days a week,…

> Also don't trust any of the managers. Don't take anything people say at face value.

"Did you enjoy Game of Thrones? You'll love working here!"

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#383

Post by loeg »

jimbokun wrote: post #327
loeg wrote: post #170

Mark hates leakers, so it is kind of intensely funny that the NYT seems to have a direct line to probably dozens of ICs. Ultimately, it's hard to keep secrets shared with 70,000 employees.

Employees seeing wave after wave of their coworkers laid off. You won’t win much loyalty that way. This latest one releasing the NUMBER and DATE of the layoffs a month in advance without naming WHO is a whole new level of stupid. Let’s deliberately maximize the level of anxiety in our employees and reduce their trust in us to zero.

> This latest one releasing the NUMBER and DATE of the layoffs a month in advance

This, too, was leaked to the press. Their plan wasn't to announce a month in advance.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#384

Post by anon84873628 »

stingraycharles wrote: post #279
pinkgolem wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, i struggle with spelling/wording and ask the LLM to proofread a lot. I often send out the LLM version, but still check if it contains the original thoughts correctly. It's not a bad way to extend your vocabulary & catch spelling mistakes

> I often send out the LLM version, but still check if it contains the original thoughts correctly. Please don’t do this. You probably aren’t aware of how bad this can land. It’s not just about containing your original thoughts, it’s about the verbosity, repetitiveness, and absurdity of it all. Grammarly is a much better tool for these kinds of purposes, and it actually guides and teaches you to improve your writing…

Verbosity and repetitiveness? Which tools are you using?

Tell it that you want a succinct professional email and it will do that. Give it examples of your own writing and it will match that style. If there's something you don't like, tell it to rewrite the part differently.

Theses are literally the things language models are best at.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#385

Post by 878654Tom »

somewhatgoated wrote: post #340
jimbokun wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of time I will just say “Gemini/Claude is telling me…” just like I would for a Google search result. Sometimes helpful to use the common wisdom embedded in the LLMs as a starting point for the discussion.

As soon as I read this phrase my eyes glaze over and I skip everything that comes after it. If I want the LLM answer I freaking ask it myself

Indeed, am I talking to a person or to a proxy-prompt?

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#386

Post by Seattle3503 »

toast0 wrote: post #285
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% understand the appeal of freedom from external pressures that retirement offers. But at the same time all the (many) people I know that retired early mostly just goof off and struggle to complete any of their many projects. And don’t get me wrong, I love goofing off. Been doing plenty of it. But given my inevitable death I have to appreciate a little external pressure forcing me to do good work.

> But at the same time all the (many) people I know that retired early mostly just goof off and struggle to complete any of their many projects. I retired early and ended up going back to work part time. I didn't complete many of my projects, but that's not why I went back. Most of my projects were things I wanted to play with, not things I expected to finish. Working part time is nice because of external pressure, b…

Are you a dev? What does part time look like?

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#387

Post by anon84873628 »

xp84 wrote: post #302
Aurornis wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She genuinely seemed to think she's helping me by spending 15 seconds typing in a prompt and having me spend the next 30 minutes untangling the AI slop. This is the root frustration spreading across workplaces everywhere. Before AI the only way for someone to generate a design document, Jira ticket, or pull request without investing a lot of their own time and effort into producing what you saw. LLMs came along and…

Insightful take. What’s funny to me is your last paragraph. A lot of companies are so gung-ho about “AI ALL the things!” that I’m not sure as a manager if I’d get in trouble for “spotting the AI copy paste” junk. I’m supposed to make sure everyone is using AI as much as possible, after all. So, rejecting someone’s output for being low-effort AI slop and asking for a “less AI” version of it might mark me as a silly ol…

Why not coach the people to use the AI correctly and continue rewriting until it is the correct length and level of detail? This whole thread is full of people talking as if you can only one shot the things, or they are incapable of being succinct.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#388

Post by xantronix »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #10

Not going to lie, I have no pity for the tech employees of a company that has spent most of its existence making the world a worse place. They are finally getting a taste of the medicine Facebook has been giving to everyone in the last 2 decades.

I hear you, but many in the tech industry will likely use this moment as a bellwether of what else they can do to extract every last drop of value from their employees. This is going to get really fucking ugly really quickly if, say, Microsoft, were to package this capability up as part of their fleet management suite to sell to companies who all want their own models like this.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#389

Post by stingraycharles »

anon84873628 wrote: post #384
stingraycharles wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often send out the LLM version, but still check if it contains the original thoughts correctly. Please don’t do this. You probably aren’t aware of how bad this can land. It’s not just about containing your original thoughts, it’s about the verbosity, repetitiveness, and absurdity of it all. Grammarly is a much better tool for these kinds of purposes, and it actually guides and teaches you to improve your writing…

Verbosity and repetitiveness? Which tools are you using? Tell it that you want a succinct professional email and it will do that. Give it examples of your own writing and it will match that style. If there's something you don't like, tell it to rewrite the part differently. Theses are literally the things language models are best at.

> Tell it that you want a succinct professional email and it will do that. Give it examples of your own writing and it will match that style.

This is not what the parent I replied to indicated, nor what people usually do.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#390

Post by anon84873628 »

bandrami wrote: post #351
Forgeties79 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the market always finds a way That may be the case but every day LLM’s feel less like the next big thing and more like 3D printing. Here to stay, but not nearly as ubiquitous and earth shattering as people made it out to be. If I had to guess right now, I would say LLM’s are more significant than 3D printers, but less significant than the Internet.

I've thought the 3D-printing analogy is pretty apt for about a year now. It had a lot of promise at first but it never quite has the impact people thought it would. There are still 3D printers for sale, and people still prototype with them, but nobody's printing out a dustpan when they need one.

Um, have you heard about the drone warfare in Ukraine?
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