cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/63615439
The reality of how much damage AI mania is doing to our ability to run institutions effectively.
Faster decisions aren’t automatically better decisions.
What is puzzling to me is there seem to be no companies which take a deliberate, measured, experimental approach.
No “You can use that but you have to report on difficulties or disadvantages”.
No “you can use it but not when correctness is critical, errors could harm people, or it can directly affect things critical for our business”.
No “Give us first an estimate in how long it will take, and then we will roll a dice, decide if it will be done using AI, and after 50 tries we will compare whether it makes a difference”.
No “You can use AI, but you are responsible that the result works and is correct, no slack on this, and failure to do so gives you minus points”.
No “You can use it, your max token budget is 100 USD per month”.
No “You can use it, but do not input any company secrets, confidential data, medical records, or things like passwords and security-relevant data”.
There seems to be zero risk management.
Imagine pesticides, radioactive substances, or highly toxic chemicals would have been introduced in such a manner.
See also this book chapter by Baldur Bjarnason.
Companies doing that aren’t making headline worthy mistakes
Our company develops software for medical devices. Risk assessment is everything, and we currently do “You can use AI, but you are responsible that the result works and is correct” and “You can use it, but do not input any company secrets, confidential data, medical records, or things like passwords and security-relevant data”.
I guess the difference is we’re too busy making things and we don’t have the time to brag about AI on social media? Also we’re small and don’t have the reach anyway.
And it’s not “news” in the same way that “I drove to work today without incident” doesn’t make headlines.
Why don’t you think it’s not happening? Do you think headlines are the best way to determine what’s happening in the world?
Well, show me any job ads that tell this.
Or is this somehow hidden in some kind of cat whistle?
Imagine pesticides, radioactive substances, or highly toxic chemicals would have been introduced in such a manner.
Sadly, there is no need to imagine. There is no limit to people’s greed. And guardrails are only installed after there is no way to hide damage done.
My employer does the first, second, fourth, and sixth of those. (And I’m in the uncomfortable position of simultaneously building internal tools to make our AI use more effective, and telling everyone who will listen that we’re just walking blindly into yet another Oracle or Broadcom situation.)
No “You can use that but you have to report on difficulties or disadvantages”.
No “You can use AI, but you are responsible that the result works and is correct, no slack on this, and failure to do so gives you minus points”.
No “You can use it, your max token budget is 100 USD per month”.
No “You can use it, but do not input any company secrets, confidential data, medical records, or things like passwords and security-relevant data”.
These are all policies at the company I work for. Only its $100 AUD, not USD.
This is about AI mania in coporate environments.
I posted this because it describes some unfortunate dynamics and also has, in the last section, suggestions to programmers which are affected by AI mandates, or tasked with fixing huge amounts of slop code.
“there are entire companies right now under heavy AI psychosis and it’s impossible to have rational conversations with them”
I have read enough posts & comments on the fediverse to know the author’s not exaggerating.
I claim that this extends to politics/politicians as well.
Are companies actually seeing massive productivity gains from their AI adoption? Does any of this sordid affair make sense?
This should be an easy question, but it is surprisingly hard to get a straight answer to it. Executives that tell the press that their company has gone insane will quickly find themselves removed from their positions. Employees who are honest will find themselves fired in short-order, or “randomly” selected for a round of layoffs. In fact, it is in the interests of almost every actor in the space – boards, executives, employees, vendors, consultants – to obfuscate and misrepresent the success rate of AI projects. Many publicly traded companies are putting out announcements about their AI productivity gains when I know for a fact that the businesses have done nothing other than purchase Copilot licenses and declare victory.
Nobody dares to point out that the Emperor really has no clothes. Eerily similar to Trump’s or Putin’s regime, or any number of dicktaters.
For goodness sake, let those poor letters breathe! My brain felt squished trying to read that.
Agreed, switching to the browser’s default font helps.
