I suspect all this analysis may have been on productivity (and that is a metric that carries a shit tonne of questionable methodology) of what anthropologist David Graeber classified as Bullshit Jobs. In my public sector work a considerable portion of my time is consumed by providing summaries, updates, reports on measures that various middle and senior management demand, which most don’t read, understand or provide meaningful input.
These would be the sort of tasks which a LLM tool could provide a response. Doing this stuff myself already contributes to alienation in my workplace, so using a LLM I imagine would only exacerbate that.
I cannot in good conscience justify use such tools because the energy demands are exorbitant for such a trivial purpose.
I also don’t believe it is only in the realm of the public sector, I have worked with enough private sector consultants who can confirm the existence of bullshit jobs with in them as well.
My alcoholic and definitely autistic father once said that working with your hands would give you satisfaction like almost nothing else would. I tried to explain to his stubborn Glaswegian brain that of course, because it filled the creative need inherent in everyone. He disagreed with me, as he did on almost everything.
Either way, I think the stupid bastard was right. We need to create. Even if it's just emails. Slipping a subversive comment into an email is the delight of a day. What really lights up your whole week is the "I see what you did there" from the other end.
It helps build good working relationships and those are a much larger step towards increasing productivity than any nicely written email generated by the seething horror that is ChatGPT.
I recall seeing some stats a while back about how much work office drones (no offence to the office drones out there) actually did in a day (I think it was between 1 to 2 hours, so I'm guessing it meant productive work) which makes me think that a day's work can be effectively done during a commute. Maybe there is only so much time one can faff around at work before the ennui sets in?
But fairly, it was here and it was more like 3-4 hours of top notch material, then 2 hours of adequate paper pushing, and then it's tapping out a yes or no to some emails for the remaining time.
It's not like my job is crap, and that's why thinking in it is so hard. It's that it's taxing to do complex analysis in something that, while interesting, isn't what I'd spend my free time doing.
I've been trying to work out why I don't like the idea of AI for business writing. I think this might be it- that it will take the creativity or intellect out of our work.
Some might say that's a good thing- that people can focus on fine tuning products rather than brute-forcing content. Sure. Ok. But if we don't have the thoughts, then we're not taking responsibility and we're just processing widgets.
i worry for my kids. I am gripping, with a white knuckled vice like grim death, a belief that i'll be able able to ride this out for the next ten or so years to reach some kind of early retirement age where i reckon i could eke out the last section of my life. The kids are young enough to be able to adapt . . . hopefully. 10 odd yrs is all i need timewise. If it comes in half that time i'm stuffed. Unemployed with 8-10yrs to retirement with some outdated unmarketable knowledge/skills base? And a tendency for the work market to discriminate against age? Sounds like caravan housing material if we get lumped with an unforeseen financial, sickness or a catastrophic event.
Well, that's lightened my mood. Maybe i should run this response through an AI bot to make it sound a bit more upbeat lol
Yes I appreciate the difference between AI actually writing something autonomously vs filling in the blanks/interpreting speech during dictation. There is certainly a world of difference right there
I should probably stop calling the speech recognition program ‘AI’ because some people will lose their shit over it. It’s just dictation software like I’ve been using for years- but a lot faster and more accurate
looking forward to the day i can video call my grandkids "hey kiddo, i need this AI bot to go downstairs and kick the neighbour in the pants for being too noisy. In my day you had to send them back in time to erase the younger version of the target so it wouldnt be a problem in the now, but i can't figure out how to set the date"
"Grandpa, they arent allowed to kill people"
"oh really? I could have sworn we used to do that. How do you get it to draft a strongly worded letter? Something that is really nasty? Every damn time it comes back with Dear Chad, could you kindly . . ."
I suspect all this analysis may have been on productivity (and that is a metric that carries a shit tonne of questionable methodology) of what anthropologist David Graeber classified as Bullshit Jobs. In my public sector work a considerable portion of my time is consumed by providing summaries, updates, reports on measures that various middle and senior management demand, which most don’t read, understand or provide meaningful input.
These would be the sort of tasks which a LLM tool could provide a response. Doing this stuff myself already contributes to alienation in my workplace, so using a LLM I imagine would only exacerbate that.
I cannot in good conscience justify use such tools because the energy demands are exorbitant for such a trivial purpose.
I also don’t believe it is only in the realm of the public sector, I have worked with enough private sector consultants who can confirm the existence of bullshit jobs with in them as well.
.
The bullshit starts at the top. I have had the misfortune to be in meetings with the apex peeps, and I hate it.
My alcoholic and definitely autistic father once said that working with your hands would give you satisfaction like almost nothing else would. I tried to explain to his stubborn Glaswegian brain that of course, because it filled the creative need inherent in everyone. He disagreed with me, as he did on almost everything.
Either way, I think the stupid bastard was right. We need to create. Even if it's just emails. Slipping a subversive comment into an email is the delight of a day. What really lights up your whole week is the "I see what you did there" from the other end.
It helps build good working relationships and those are a much larger step towards increasing productivity than any nicely written email generated by the seething horror that is ChatGPT.
TLDR; Old man shouts at cloud.
I recall seeing some stats a while back about how much work office drones (no offence to the office drones out there) actually did in a day (I think it was between 1 to 2 hours, so I'm guessing it meant productive work) which makes me think that a day's work can be effectively done during a commute. Maybe there is only so much time one can faff around at work before the ennui sets in?
Hey, I resemble that comment!
But fairly, it was here and it was more like 3-4 hours of top notch material, then 2 hours of adequate paper pushing, and then it's tapping out a yes or no to some emails for the remaining time.
I find this shit fascinating!
It's not like my job is crap, and that's why thinking in it is so hard. It's that it's taxing to do complex analysis in something that, while interesting, isn't what I'd spend my free time doing.
as i saw somewhere else ;) "Hey, i resemble that comment!"
I've been trying to work out why I don't like the idea of AI for business writing. I think this might be it- that it will take the creativity or intellect out of our work.
Some might say that's a good thing- that people can focus on fine tuning products rather than brute-forcing content. Sure. Ok. But if we don't have the thoughts, then we're not taking responsibility and we're just processing widgets.
How will we look back on this stage?
i worry for my kids. I am gripping, with a white knuckled vice like grim death, a belief that i'll be able able to ride this out for the next ten or so years to reach some kind of early retirement age where i reckon i could eke out the last section of my life. The kids are young enough to be able to adapt . . . hopefully. 10 odd yrs is all i need timewise. If it comes in half that time i'm stuffed. Unemployed with 8-10yrs to retirement with some outdated unmarketable knowledge/skills base? And a tendency for the work market to discriminate against age? Sounds like caravan housing material if we get lumped with an unforeseen financial, sickness or a catastrophic event.
Well, that's lightened my mood. Maybe i should run this response through an AI bot to make it sound a bit more upbeat lol
I wonder if being the last human standing in a sea of AI is a selling point.
Pretty sure AI would just add "lol" to the end of each para to make it more upbeat
"Certainly! I can do that for you"
lol but with exclamation points !o!
Seems wrong that I legit laughed out loud at this.
Yes I appreciate the difference between AI actually writing something autonomously vs filling in the blanks/interpreting speech during dictation. There is certainly a world of difference right there
Honestly, it's insane how much more I get done each day not having to dictate punctuation.
11 books you say? 'Squeeeee!' Guess this AI might just be good for something (probably not my work I imagine)
I should probably stop calling the speech recognition program ‘AI’ because some people will lose their shit over it. It’s just dictation software like I’ve been using for years- but a lot faster and more accurate
looking forward to the day i can video call my grandkids "hey kiddo, i need this AI bot to go downstairs and kick the neighbour in the pants for being too noisy. In my day you had to send them back in time to erase the younger version of the target so it wouldnt be a problem in the now, but i can't figure out how to set the date"
"Grandpa, they arent allowed to kill people"
"oh really? I could have sworn we used to do that. How do you get it to draft a strongly worded letter? Something that is really nasty? Every damn time it comes back with Dear Chad, could you kindly . . ."