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I'm Tired of Talking to AI

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Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#631

Post by sfink »

metalliqaz wrote: post #488
My_Name wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people are not self-sufficient entities. 10% are so unable to think that they are simply not able to be a net positive in any job, it takes more energy/time to micromanage them, even for simple tasks, than they put back into the business. 50% are incapable of real innovation. Having met people in my life, an AI is better than most of them by any objective measure IMO.

I agree with your assessment of people. I find that there is a lot of overlap with this old quote: Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. AI is the perfect product for that third group. However I disagree in that I don't want to "talk to AI" either. Any time anyone sends me AI output, I simply reply that I can prompt GPT myself, if I want; just send me the inputs.

> Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Heh. It's a believable taxonomy, but it makes me suspect it could often have the corollary:

    Small minds create work; average minds do work; great minds talk about work.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#633

Post by batshit_beaver »

lazystar wrote: post #571
sixtyj wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather hear the answer “I don’t know. I had to look it up.” (And I don’t care what you have used as sources, as citing counts with norms/laws or in academics.) If you really rewrite LLM’s response in your own words, I will know that you have learnt something. Because if you tell me directly that you have asked Claude, next time I will probably ask Claude directly as I don’t need you. And we won’t be able to d…

> Because if you tell me directly that you have asked Claude, next time I will probably ask Claude directly as I don’t need you. and what if i tell you i asked stack overflow?

Back in the day, you couldn’t ask stack overflow about your specific business or project. You were forced to build at least some level of understanding of what you were doing on the job or risk your lack of knowledge being obvious (and obviously holding you back).

What we’re seeing now is industrial grade ignorance that can only be observed in in-person or video meetings.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#634

Post by ryandrake »

adithyassekhar wrote: post #620
butlike wrote: post #362

I agree and on my death bed I'm going to realize I spent my life working from home, talking to a machine, and not enriching any person's life directly. It's just so gruesomely LONELY.

It hurts that I relate with this so much. I am wasting my 20s. I see people who advocate for permanent wfh has plans with their social circle. Either already has a family or friends. Sucks to be the one trying to build a new life. Btw, I don’t believe them a bit. All I see are rotten people who no longer speaks new things, or is a living instagram bot.

Different strokes for different folks at different stages in their lives. If I wrote OP's post 7 years ago before WFH, I'd have said: "on my death bed I'm going to realize I spent my life driving 2.5 hours each way to an office to type into a machine and to maintain physical proximity to people I don't really like or dislike. It's just so gruesomely UNNECESSARY."

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#635

Post by malwrar »

I once had someone start _arguing with me_ about stuff using generative text on Slack or generated email replies. Not even to provide information, but just to write flat denials to even continue discussion on the subject. This person had a very distinctive writing style, and the shift to the AI writing style felt pretty obvious and uncanny.

I can’t describe how disturbing it was to realize that my voice suddenly no longer mattered, and that I was speaking to something that would never get tired of creatively dismissing my ideas without ever really addressing them. This behavior compounded and was unaddressed by anyone, no one I talked to seemed willing to try actually pushing back against it. Best solution they had was to have physical meetings w/ n>1 people on each side in the room. Trust plummeted, and eventually all meetings with that team were recorded and transcripted, and people started talking like they were on stage vs trying to solve shared problems. Work ground to a halt on even basic things, and I ended up leaving. This was on a pretty major project that has a name people here would know, but don’t ask me what!

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#636

Post by enobrev »

jvanderbot wrote: post #330
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…

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 fr…

I've done a similar thing with close friends and family who would constantly ask me things I couldn't possibly know because I always came up with an answer.

Eventually I realized why and explained, "you know, I'm really just going to do a web search for what you just asked me, and maybe a couple more until I have a decent answer and then give you that answer. Let me show you how I would go about that".

From then on, they started getting into the habit of doing that for themselves. I think now with LLMs, they've kept the habit, but the LLM gives a more complete answer with fewer steps so it becomes the default. I think the magic of AI is two-fold (well, more than two, but two bullets for this conversation).

1. You don't have to "query". You can just braindump, and it'll build a context and figure out what you're looking for

2. It's conversational, so instead of filtering and tweaking results from the first query, your second "query" builds on top of the context from the first question, and you get a stronger result as the conversation continues.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#638

Post by thewebguyd »

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.

My "favorite" as a sysadmin is when I explain why something should be done differently, or shouldn't be done at all, and I get back "but ChatGPT said..." followed by a no-context, incorrect AI slop paragraph.

One of the more dangerous things LLMs have enabled is people feeling like they are suddenly experts on topics they would have never touched otherwise.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#639

Post by voxleone »

I'm tired of sorting out what github link is worth clicking, considering the deluge of vibecoded [I dont like this verb] new repos, the pride of minor accomplishments, no matter how meaningless: 'Look Mom. I made it say hello!'.

I hate to say that but maybe some kind of vetting on those pages is in order.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#640

Post by MattyRad »

Keybase. Keybase was/is a trust network that was unceremoniously and unduly strangled. (You were the chosen one!)

I don't know how its style of trust systems can help us solve these major trust problems, but I feel that it's the right direction to save us from the onslaught. If I had the time, this is where I'd focus my efforts, i.e. creating a (maintained) trust overlay on existing social networks. Using slop vacates trust, share your trust signals with other people you trust.

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