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I'm Tired of Talking to AI

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Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#791

Post by cm11 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #528
tardedmeme wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why executives think LLMs can replace everyone. They can see it can replace them , and project that onto everyone else. And they don't see the gaps in knowledge because they don't care about the facts, only the presentation.

I have a theory that most people at most levels of work deal with the same amount of mental complexity. The difference is that as you move up the unit of abstraction gets larger, so your decisions and knowledge cover more scale. E.g. the engineer thinks about functions; the business owner thinks about products; the investor thinks about companies; the president thinks about nations; etc. But people at the higher abst…

I think agree with the broad, but disagree with the specifics. I really don't think a lot of people at the product level think about products. I really don't think the investors think that much about companies. I think as you move up, the things that separate are (in no order): ability to solve OR mask problems (one of these requires more skill/effort, but to people above they can look a lot closer), ability to naturally or adaptively (this is a fair, but somewhat positive word for this) socialize with the people in that next level, nepotism or blurrier forms of getting your foot in the door, willingness to look the other way (or just be obtuse), willingness to lie (or just be obtuse).

After the IC-level, each level filters less for the duties of the higher role. Even PMs seem surprisingly par at product ideation, vision, insight amongst their cross functional project team members. So many products fail, so many startups fail, so many projects are late, but those things don't seem to be what dictate promotions or investment even when they are specifically that role's role.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#792

Post by xp84 »

timbaboon wrote: post #651
batu1509 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'AI-generated pseudo-spec' is becoming a massive productivity killer. Non-technical managers prompt an LLM, get a highly confident 5-page document with chosen libraries, and think they've done 80% of the work. But as a developer, you now have to spend hours debugging and debunking hallucinated architectures just to prove why the AI's approach doesn't fit the existing codebase. It completely shifts the burden of a…

I was discussing a change we wanted to make to some tables in one of the DBs, but it would require a lot of effort because of the sheer size. Anyway, after saying how much effort would be required the response I got was to “please ask ChatGPT.” It gave a slightly different response, but changed it after I presented it with my solution and agreed that was the better approach. Just… sigh

"Apologies, you're absolutely right. My initial strategy indeed would have caused a massive database bottleneck because it would lock the entire table. This could result in downtime for the application. Let me know if you'd like me to make a step-by-step plan to implement your solution."

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#793

Post by ako »

jvanderbot wrote: post #241
ako wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m using ai to answer questions, but I instruct it in draft what answers to include, what info to include from my llm wiki (second brain). Saves time to write a correct response, can easily refer to past conversations, but definitely not 100% outsources to AI.

If you need to find information to answer a colleague, use AI if that's helpful. I have no idea why anyone would let an AI dictate the response - you lose your entire voice and depersonalize your response. Do you keep a markdown of your communication style and past inside jokes? Or did you start so early with AI that you dont even have those to keep?

Because it’s often hard to find the right voice? because it’s often hard to describe something in the correct way? Communication is hard, finding the correct tone of voice often takes me a long time, so using AI makes me more efficient in a busy day?

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#794

Post by rightbyte »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #229
thesamethrowawa wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's just rude and borderline psychotic behavior. With some notable exceptions, this describes almost every business owner I've worked with.

I use to get emails with some oddball questions slightly out of my field of expertise from business owners. I would answer, and they would forward my email to the person that asked them the question. They saw their role as routers.

Delegating questions to experts seem reasonable?

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#795

Post by robocat »

civvv wrote: post #391
hn111 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can send them this: https://noslopgrenade.com

>Or as Jean Baudrillard has said: It is nothing short of profoundly ironic to quote Jean Baudrillard in this context.

That is a version anglicisée meme. I prefer the original:

« Le contexte réel s’effondre au moment même où l’on me cite. »

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#796

Post by cortesoft »

js8 wrote: post #181
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…

LMGTFY is an ironic jab, not a suggestion. > if you are going to ask me for help, at least make some effort first It's actually the other way around. You should think what makes you feel they didn't make an effort? Why do you think I am asking - because I think you have a better answer than I can get from Google or AI. But this is where it's apparently going. We will all talk to AI rather than each other. And we will…

> You should think what makes you feel they didn't make an effort?

Usually because the question is very easily answered with a quick web search.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#798

Post by xp84 »

notnullorvoid wrote: post #546
justinclift wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> psychotic Probably more under-developed than psychotic. ie not really using their adult thinking any more

I think psychotic fits. They have lost touch with reality, and are treating AI as some all knowing entity.

People have no mental model for it. They know people don't know much, and are used to computers being deterministic. Now (setting aside complete rubes who believe anything) people are used to detecting human-generated BS and spam on the Internet.

- It's nearly always poorly written because dummies also usually can barely write

- It's poorly packaged (some random comments section, not a polished slide deck)

- It's biased in predictable ways (when you do know who wrote it, their self-interested takes are predictable).

Enter "AI" - it writes mechanically well (even though it overuses several tropes, it doesn't make grammatical errors). AI packages its output as exactly what you ask it to (e.g. finished coding projects, outlines, essays, etc.) And not being a person, it's not guaranteed to have a certain bias, but it does echo and validate all your own biases.

Given all this, people think AI sounds exactly like what they assume an oracle would sound like.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#800

Post by waisbrot »

LizzM wrote: post #677
rickydroll wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attribute people returning AI answers to a desire to feel valued and to feel that they contribute something to the person asking the question. But they are not self-aware or confident enough to understand that they should preface the AI response with: "Interesting question, I asked Claude that question, and here's what I got for a response. Here's what I thought was interesting about Claude's response and what I th…

Do you feel returning an answer that an AI gives is the same as searching it on Google (old fashion way) and just producing an answer from there?

Nowadays, the top Google result is probably LLM-generated blog-spam of lower-quality than whatever chatbot your company is paying for.

Back when most Google results were authentic web-pages, something like "here's a web page that I think solves your problem" was a fairly useful reply from a coworker.

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