My company is strongly pushing AI. There are lot of experiments, demos, and effort from decently smart people about integrating it into our workflows. There are some impressive victories that have been made with AI tooling producing some things fast. I am not in denial about this. And the SE department is tracking improved productivity (as measured by # of tickets being done, I guess?)
The problem is I hate AI. I hate every fucking thing about it. Its primary purpose, regardless of what utility is gained, is spam. I think it’s obvious how google search results are spam, how spam songs and videos are being produced, etc. But even bad results from AI that have to be discarded, IMO, are spam.
And that isn’t even getting into all massive amounts of theft to train the data, or the immense amounts of electricity it takes to do training and inference, as well as run, all this crap. Nor the psychosis being inflicted onto people who emplace their trust into these systems. Nor the fact that these tools are being used to empower authoritarian regimes to track vulnerable populations, both here (in the USA) and abroad. And all this AI shit serves to enrich the worst tech moguls and to displace people like artists and people like myself, a programmer.
I’m literally being told at my job that I should view myself basically as an AI babysitter, and that AI has been unambiguously proven in the industry, so the time for wondering about it, experimenting with it, or opposing it is over. The only fault and flaw is my (i.e. any given SE’s) unwillingness to adapt and onboard.
Looking for advice from people who have had to navigate similar crap. Because I feel like I’m at a point where I must adapt or eventually get fired.
My company does annual reviews. You have to write your own review, then they will read it over and then sit down to talk to you about it.
Last year, I just had ChatGPT write it for me based on all of my past conversations with it. Turned it in. The first question they asked me was, ‘Did you use AI to write this?’ Without hesitation, I said absolutely. They loved it so much, they had me show everyone else how to do it and made them redo theirs. I couldn’t frikin believe it. Everyone is still pissed they have to use ChatGPT this year, but the bosses love that corporate hogwash so much.
They’re about to receive a stack of AI-generated drivel so bad that I bet they have everyone go back to handwriting them.
That’s especially saddening because writing the review is specifically meant for you to contemplate what went well and perhaps what can go better next time. You would think managers would want you to reflect on that. For the benefit of the company, at minimum.
But with stories like yours it is becoming more clear that the only objective is to “use ai” or deliver ai-generated results. Why even bother caring or trying when management does not?