all 7 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 29 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

I keep telling people that if AI can actually replace you then you probably didn't have a real job to begin with. Me n the tradies are doin just fine.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    AI isn't replacing jobs. Managers and C-suite execs that understand neither the job nor AI itself are replacing jobs as a cost reduction measure. Which will be offset by the sudden need to re-hire those workers to fix what AI has broken.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago*

    It's not that AI can replace them. It's that LLMs can offer a hugely inferior version of what they do, and for a lot of people, that's apparently fine.

    Quite a few fields that previously had only the options of "good, quality work" and "not having it", now have LLMs to offer the option of "substandard slop".

    And people like copywriters, translators, illustrators and other fields are rapidly finding out there wasn't actually a huge demand for their good quality work, there was in fact a huge demand for "not nothing", and that demand is being filled by the mediocre slop produced by LLMs now.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    I think it’s revealed a significant portion of people in tech at large aren’t very conscious

  • source
  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    Are FLMs middle management? Or lower management? Edit: duh, line managers are the lowest form of management as they oversee the actual work being done.

  • source
  • 26 comments in c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 66 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    i wonder how much trouble you'd be in if you hung this at work

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 56 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Depends on how long it takes for a middle manager to get someone to read it to them (and then explain it).

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Usually they forward it to someone to explain, forward the reply to another underling to execute and copy/paste that one's estimate or status update in the original mail's relpy.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 55 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Corporate middle managers don't use semicolons. They don't even know when to use colons or apostrophes.

    They taught AI to talk like HR reps.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 17 points 8 months ago

    Executives love AI because they can't spell automation

  • source
  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago

    It makes sense now. Middle managers are the ones most impressed by AI. They think the AI is sentient because it is just like they are.

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    Is it possible that the way humanity has been dealing the with useless 1/3 of the population was to put them in middle-management positions? Consultants and the like?

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Absolutely it is. Thats where we got the phrase "kicking them upstairs" from. Promote the useless guy to a position where they can't actually do any damage.

    If AI succeeds in replacing a lot of those "positions", we're going to face a tsunami of idiots.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Oh. Oh, oh my god. I think we need a space goat or something...

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

    Graeber states that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and five types of entirely pointless jobs:

    • Flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, store greeters;
    • Goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, or to prevent other goons from doing so, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists;
    • Duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing shoddy code, airline desk staff who calm passengers with lost luggage;
    • Box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, academic administration;[14]
    • Taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals.[1][4]
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago

    Remember when they fired the guy from Google because he claimed AI was sentient?

  • source
  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    What happens when middle management realizes the only jobs AI can actually do is their jobs?

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    That seems like one of the more reasonable scenarios to expect "AI" to thrive, actually.

    You have dozens to thousands of people doing the actual work, then you have one CEO or owner that asks the AI to summarize what all the workers have been doing and communicating. It then presents them with a list of suggested decisions with some metrics tied to them like chance of success and Net Present Value (NPV).

    The AI wouldn't even have to do a good job! It would just have to get things wrong or make up bullshit whole cloth as much as human middle managers, or maybe even less!

    I think this is a possiblity not because the AI will do a good job, but because the ONE thing that LLMs seem to be good at is mimicking what a random human might type, including humans who are often ignorant or wrong.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Yup, it'll screw up, but so do middle managers.

    Another use case is replace Hollywood movie execs with LLMs. Sure it will greenlight unoriginal movies, but it would be no real change over the current state of things.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    It also learnt some therapy speak same applies.

  • source
  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    That’s a sharp joke 😅 Sometimes sounding polished and confident gets mistaken for intelligence. Tone can be convincing, even when there’s not much depth behind it.

  • source
  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Well that checks since to anyone who does not have any ideas on anything, every idea sounds great.

  • source
  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    I'm kind of a middle manager, and I get the hate. I like to think I'm different but I'm not entirely sure. At least my collaborators do appreciate me.

  • source