Work Reform

I used to work for a small digital strategy consultancy. All the senior consultants up were expert in pretty much everything digital marketing and did their own data manipulation and analysis. SEO, technical SEO, link building, paid search, paid ads, Facebork ads, Youtube ads, social listening, search research... you name it. New consultants sat with experts, learned from people who genuinely knew their shit. We were expensive compared to, eg. Accenture's off-shore teams, but our results were far stronger, and offered genuinely actionable insights (relevant to our clients' business strategies and goals), compared to Accenture's off-shore teams.

Then we got bought up. Quite apart from the devastation that wreaked upon our ops staff as we were 'integrated' into the larger company, we were instructed to start using AI for all data analysis. For efficiency. So, our junior consultants no longer did any of their own data aggregation, cleaning, manipulation, or analysis. They didn't understand the data. They just spewed out whatever the AI told them the data said. Which, admittedly, was quicker. But there was no insight beyond the fucking obvious.

And, one by one, all the experienced people left the company.

Including me.

What had been a company of experts became a small department of AI users who didn't understand what they were doing, or why, or what it meant.

Perspective from someone forced to use AI at work:

I am a software developer and I am "invited" to use AI to ship as fast as possible. I hate it with all of my heart, and you know why? Because before I could think of myself and use the time to create something, whereas now I have to spend the same amount of time to talk to a machine and I can't do anything while it works. If it doesn't understand I have to explain again. It's frustrating

As someone who has always been interested in technology and it's development, I find AI fascinating.

As someone who has a brain and can see all of the negative impacts this technology is having and will have on the world, I find AI deeply saddening and scary.

Can we go back to the 90s?

53% disapproval is rookie numbers! We can do better, fellow people!

We were told this in a recent dept meeting:

We are not talking about replacing you or me by AI, no no no. We are talking about acceleration. To accelerate and change our ways of working and this is mandatory — yes or yes. The colleague — it doesn't mean just this dept — that doesn't use AI for their daily work next year, won't be in this company. And we will check it. This is the message: won't be in this company. And i'm not talking because it's me who orders this. No, it's the strategy of the company.

I'm sooo motivated to be working there...

Every fucking month I go from thinking my job is okay to fucking hating it because the CEO and other executives at my company give me orders from AI, or new orders to use AI in some fantastically stupid and needles way.

FUCK AI.

And the data centers, meanwhile, are destroying the goddamn planet and making everything worse for innocent people who live near them.

FUCK. AI.

I hate AI with a passion.

For me AI represents a decline in cognitive ability.

In the past when I solved a problem, I actually learned something, and I felt great about that.

When using AI, I don't get the same satisfaction of having learned something.

I swear to god, as much as I used to be pro ai from like 2019 to 2023, AI has made my coworkers so fucking stupid. So many of them are like useless without AI now and I keep getting sideways looks when I say I don't use AI for my job.

I get it to some extent as I work IT, but come on! You can't even make a fucking email without CoPilot telling you what to say!? Use AI as in Actual Intelligence! It's found in that place between your ears, god damn it.

Who doesn't love having a dumbass client tell you, the industry professional of 10-20 years and a senior member of their department, that they figured out the problem you've been working on for over a year, and the answer is ?

No joke, had TWO clients within a week send me slop telling me that ThEy TaLkEd WiTh ChAtGeMaUdE and basically tell me that to solve a issue with a specific vendor app that I really need to check the firewall for blocks for some operating system functions that aren't even in use.

Like fuck dude, read your own goddamned slop and use your Alleged Intelligence to see if it even sounds remotely applicable.....

If it generated wealth that workers could share in, then they might like it. But it's not generating wealth for anyone.

ngl though, AI told me the format that doctors typically ask questions in and I put everything that I wanted to say in that format in my head before I went to the appointment which was a neurologist and she said well you answered everything exactly how I was gonna say it and it was like the shortest appointment ever.

The socially awkward CEOs of these companies went out giggle farting about how AI was going to replace everyone. Everyone starting thinking about how that would mean nobody could eat because they see what’s happening in politics. Everyone decided to nope out of that.

If they had let their PR dept handle things everyone would be oblivious and happy right now.

Good thing they could not keep their mouths shut.

"closer to the opposite" is a funny way of saying "the opposite"

AI has multiplied the workload and management is in psychosis